"Which way is south?"

Translation: 南はどっちですか？

[DavidKames]

どっちは南ですか。isn't acceptable?

[ArtBurnap]

The focus must be on the key question word in a question, so it must either follow は, which marks the topic / already known information ( 南 は どっちですか) or followed by が, which marks the subject of the comment / new information ( どっち が 南ですか) .

[68WGomez]

どっち cannot be a topic so can't use は. You can use が as in どっちが南ですか。

[emmarocio]

I have read that question words can't be the topic of the sentence; they go after the は.

[Mercedes226780]

I was wondering that too... idk

[Seattle_Scott]

it sounds better the other way, but it's not incorrect, and if you said it in a conversation I would certainly understand what you were saying.

[MerleBlue]

I have the same question. Isn't it grammatically correct?

[PabloArias470876]

Shouldn't it be ごちら？

[CaleGibbard]

Do you mean どちら？ どっち is sort of a contraction of it.

[V2Blast]

I typed どちら and it wasn't accepted. I reported it.

[AndyinKochi03]

I agree. Isn't どち ら the polite version of どち? If so it should accept it.

[Alex872964]

Why is it あっち for north and どっち for south?

[LunaAVL]

こっち - this way (close to speaker)
そっち - that way (close to listener)
あっち - over that way (away from both speaker and listener)
どっち - which way (part of a question)

[Theresa280444]

Exactly! I was wondering the same thing.

[Seattle_Scott]

南はどちらの方向ですか。I almost put this, and I know it's right, but I reverted to word tiles and chose what Duo wanted me to say, because I'm so tired of having questions marked wrong by not knowing what Duo wanted.

[Daniel621930]

I know that どこ and どっち have differrent meanings, but in this particular case, it should be possible to say 南はどこですか, or am I wrong?

[Aelfwine81]

Can I not use に instead of は here?