difference between Qué and Cuál

Question

This is the question on my hw.

A: ¿_____ tipo de películas te gustan? B: Me gustan las películas de acción.

should I put in the "Qué" or "Cuál"?

Answer 1

¿Qué tipo de películas te gustan? What kind of films do you like? ¿Cuál de las dos películas te gustaban más? Which of the two films did you like most?

Answer 2

First of al 'Cuál' cannot be used here because 'películas' is plural and the plural form of 'Cuál' is 'Cuáles'. "Qué" will be used here since its before a noun. Note that there is no plural form of 'Qué'.

There are also some places where 'Cuál' or 'Cuáles' are used before singular and plural noun respectively. It is difficult for me to give a strict rule or pattern on the usage of Qué and Cuál because exceptions are always there and a native speaker probably knows more than I do on their exact places of usage.

These two webpages may help you further understand them:

1) http://spanish.about.com/cs/grammar/a/que_vs_cual.htm

2) http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/resources/ask_what.php

However, the noun of agreement would be 'tipo' which is singular. - katydew, Sep 14, 2012

Answer 3

Could it be asking which (what) kind of movies do you like? There are limited choices of genres So, to my thinking, ¿"cuál"?. I'm frequently wrong so feel free to correct.