French grammar points – Quel/quelle, que, qu’est-ce que, quoi?

You might be a beginner or have been learning French for a while and you’re still unsure about the correct French interrogative expression for ‘what’ or ‘which’. Que, quoi, quel(s), quelle(s) or qu’est-ce que (qui) ? Which one should you use?

1. Quel(le)

There are 2 ways to use quel:

a) With a noun to express “what” or “which”

A noun needs to follow after the interrogative words quel, quels, quelle or quelles (masculine & feminine, singular & plural).

Examples:

Quels enfants vont jouer au foot aujourd’hui ? = Which children are going to play soccer today?

Voici la liste des chansons. Quelle chanson française tu préfères ? = Here is the song list. Which French song do you prefer?

Quel livre est-ce que tu lis ? = What book are you reading?

Quel animal vois-tu ? = What animal do you see?

Quel animal est-ce que tu vois ? = What animal do you see?

b) With the verb être (to be) to express “what is”

 Quel(le) can also be used directly with the verb être (to be).

Examples:

Quelle est votre destination ? = What is your destination? (Note that it is still an interrogative adjective and must agree with the noun).

Quel est votre problème ? = What’s your problem?

2. Que and qu’est-ce que

Que and its longer form qu’est-ce que are interrogative pronouns and are used as direct objects in a sentence. They are used to ask questions about things. Que is followed by the inversion of subject and verb, whereas qu’est-ce que is followed by normal subject-verb word order.

Examples:

Que préfères-tu ? = What do you prefer?

Qu’est-ce que tu préfères ? = What do you prefer?

Note: A straight and simplified translation of “what do…” is qu’est-ce que…

3. Quoi

 Use quoi when you have a preposition involved (à, de, dans, etc..) and the question can be formed     either with inversion or with est-ce que.

Examples:
À quoi pensez-vous ? = What are you thinking about?

De quoi parlez-vous ? = What are you talking about?

Dans quoi rangez-vous le pain ? = In what do you put the bread?

Quoi, in familiar language, can also be used for informal questions. It can also be used alone to say “what” when you haven’t heard or understood something.

Examples:

Tu fais quoi ? (instead of Qu’est-ce que tu fais ?) = What are you doing?

Tu aimes quoi ? = You like what?

Quoi ? = What?