Qué tal or Cómo estás
When asking someone how they are, is one phrase better than the other? I've learned both Qué tal? and Cómo estás?
Thanks!
K-
4 Answers
¿Qué tal? could also mean What's up? If you are asking about their health, go with ¿Cómo estás? If you are just asking "How are you doing?", How are things going?(¿Cómo va?/¿Cómo anda?) use either one.
They are both valid ways of asking a person how they are.
¿Cómo estás? = How are You? This is more literal as it is related to the actual words
(¿Cómo?) = how and estás is conjugated to the second person singular the familiar you
¿Qué tal? = How are things/How are you doing? and is a colloquial phrase that cannot be literally translated to make sense in this context.
You can also use/apply the expression ¿Qué tal tu trabajo? to mean How is your job going? So you see the expression can have wider applications than simply ¿Cómo estás?
I hope this helps 
A few years ago a Cuban friend of mine told me he got tired of hearing ¿Cómo estás? all the time. I guess he was talking about me because that was when he taught me ¿Cómo has estado? (How have you been?)
They all explained it wonderfully. I just wanted to add a few things.
You can also ask '¿Qué tal estás?' for 'How are you?'.
If somebody asks you '¿Qué tal?', you do not need to give a reply (unless you really want to). Like mentioned above, it is like saying 'What's up?'. Even in English a lot of the time we don't answer that question specifically. We might respond 'Hey, how have you been?', or something along the lines of that.
