Qué terrible día VS Qué día terrible

Question

My tutor told me, a mexican girl, that since you would say "Qué terrible" it follows that you say "Qué terrible día" so that you stress the adjective and not the noun. What a terrible day. Yet in a recent thread I see "Qué día caliente" chosen instead of "Qué caliente día". I also see that on google "Qué día" has more hits, thus accentuating the noun. Is my tutor wrong? She is from a small town in Mexico but very smart usually right on the mark. Gracias.

Answer 1

"¡Qué terrible día!" sounds to my Spanish ears a bit too literary for me to say that in front of my friends (I'd say "¡Qué día!" or use something more slang-ish than "terrible" here), but "¡Qué día terrible!" does not even sound right. When the adjective comes after the verb, we are normally selecting between all possible days to choose the really terrible one, whereas when it comes before the noun, it just puts a comment to it. I'd personally say "¡Qué día más terrible!"

I would never say "¡Qué día caliente!" either. It does not sound right at all. I'd say "¡Qué día más caliente!" (I don't know whether there is a regional variation on this) if I had to use "día" and "caliente", but I'd rather say "¡Qué calor!", "¡Qué día más caluroso!" or one of the many idiomatic expressions available in the language.

Answer 2

Isn't there a rule about if you have an expression with 'qué' that you have to use 'más' or 'tan'? It just doesn't sound right unless you say 'qué día más caliente ha sido...' or 'qué día tan caluroso....'

I don't have enought information on the topic, other than how Spanish is spoken in Spain, where if you start by "¡Qué + noun..." you normally continue with either "más" or "tan". - lazarus1907, Aug 30, 2010

I certainly wouldn`t have a clue of how to find such a rule but I `know`they go together right - margaretbl, Aug 30, 2010