Quale: Which

Quale is the Italian word for "which" — the question word you reach for when you want someone to pick from a set of known options. Quale libro? "Which book?" assumes a context where there are several books, and you are asking the listener to identify one of them. This is its core difference from cosa / che cosa ("what"), which asks about the unknown without presupposing a defined set.

The grammar of quale is unusually clean for an Italian question word — only two forms — but it conceals one of the most-tested orthographic traps in Italian education: the form qual è, written with no apostrophe, which catches even native writers off guard. This page covers the inflection, the syntax, the qual è rule (with the historical reason behind it), and the traps that follow.

1. The inflection: only two forms

Quale has a remarkably simple inflection — it changes only for number, not gender. Singular quale serves both masculine and feminine; plural quali does the same.

This is unusual in Italian, where most adjectives and determiners agree in both gender and number. Quale belongs to the small class of two-form adjectives — like grande, felice, interessante — that distinguish only singular from plural.

The only thing you have to decide is whether the noun is singular or plural. Gender is irrelevant.

2. Quale as determiner: in front of a noun

The most common use of quale is as a determiner — placed directly before a noun to ask "which X?" The noun typically has no article, because quale itself fills the determiner slot.

Note the last example: when quale is governed by a preposition, the preposition comes first and quale follows immediately. Italian, like most Romance languages, does not strand prepositions at the end of clauses the way English colloquially does. Which countries have you been to? becomes In quali paesi sei stato?, with in leading the question.

3. Quale as a pronoun: standing alone

Quale can also stand on its own as a pronoun, replacing the noun entirely when context makes it clear.

In these examples, the noun (maglione, opzione, vino) has already been mentioned, and quale picks it up without repeating it. This is the same logic as English which used pronominally: Of these wines, which do you recommend?

4. Qual è — the no-apostrophe rule

This is the most important orthographic point on the page, and it deserves a section to itself. When quale appears immediately before è (the verb form "is"), it is written as qual è — three characters, a space, no apostrophe.

You will see qual'è with an apostrophe in handwritten signs, in WhatsApp messages, and even in printed books from earlier decades. It is not correct in modern Italian. The Accademia della Crusca — Italy's authoritative body on the language — explicitly classifies qual'è as a misspelling.

Why no apostrophe? The historical reason

The form qual looks like an elided quale (with the final -e dropped before a vowel), which would normally take an apostrophe — exactly as l'amico (← lo amico) or un'amica (← una amica). But qual is not an elision. It is a truncation (called troncamento in Italian), a different historical process.

• Elision drops a final vowel only because the next word starts with a vowel — and the apostrophe marks the gap. L'amico but lo studente (kept full, because st- is a consonant cluster).
• Truncation drops a final vowel regardless of what follows — it is a property of the word itself in certain contexts. Quel (← quello) before any masculine singular noun: quel libro, quel ragazzo, quel cane. No apostrophe, because nothing was "elided away" — the truncated form is a stable variant.

Qual is in the same class as quel, bel, buon, gran, san — all truncations, all written without an apostrophe.

If you want a quick test: ask whether the shortened form would also exist before a consonant. Qual exists in older texts before consonants too (qual maestro, archaic) — so it is a truncation, hence no apostrophe. L' could never appear before a consonant (l'cane is impossible) — so it must be an elision, hence the apostrophe.

Other forms of quale before vowels

The truncation qual is, in modern Italian, almost exclusively used before è and very occasionally before other forms of essere starting with e (qual era "which was"). Before other vowels, the full quale is preserved.

In short: truncate to qual only before è (and sometimes era); otherwise keep the full quale.

5. Quale with prepositions

Quale combines with all the standard Italian prepositions. The preposition leads, and quale / quali follows.

Italian prepositions of the form di, a, da, in, su normally combine with the definite article (del, al, dal, nel, sul) — but they do not combine with quale. You always write them as separate words: di quale, a quale, in quale, never del quale in a question (the form del quale exists, but as a relative pronoun, "of which/whom," not as a question word).

The construction per quale motivo / per quale ragione is a slightly more formal alternative to perché — common in writing and careful speech.

6. Quale in indirect questions

When a question is embedded inside another sentence, quale keeps its form but the whole clause loses the rising intonation and the question mark.

In indirect questions introduced by verbs of mental activity (chiedersi "to wonder", non sapere "not to know"), the verb in the embedded clause may take the subjunctive in formal registers, especially when the speaker is genuinely uncertain.

The choice is one of register: indicative for everyday speech, subjunctive for careful or formal Italian. Both are acceptable in modern usage; the subjunctive is more common in writing.

7. Quale vs che vs cosa: when to choose which

English speakers often hesitate between quale, che, and cosa when forming a question. The distinction is real and worth getting right:

Quale film? and che film? both translate as "which film?" or "what film?" in English, but they shade differently in Italian:

• Quale film? presupposes a defined set: Of the films we have, which one?
• Che film? is more open: What film [in general]? — closer to "what kind of film?" or simply "what film?" without the picking-from-a-set implication.

In casual speech, the two often blur, and you will hear native speakers use them interchangeably. In careful Italian, the distinction holds: use quale when the choice is among known options, che when it is not.

For full coverage of che cosa / cosa / che, see Cosa, che cosa, che.

8. Special expressions with quale

A few fixed expressions use quale in ways worth noting:

The expression tale e quale is a fossilized usage of quale outside the question system — it functions adverbially to mean "exactly the same" or "just like that". You hear it in phrases like È tale e quale suo padre ("He's just like his father") or as a stand-alone exclamation.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• Quale has only two forms: singular quale (both masculine and feminine) and plural quali (both masculine and feminine). No quala, no qualo.
• Qual è is written with a space and no apostrophe. Writing qual'è is one of the most-tested orthographic mistakes in Italian education. The form qual is a truncation, not an elision.
• Quale governs prepositions cleanly: di quale, a quale, in quale, con quale, etc. Never combined with the article (del, al) in question form.
• Quale picks among a defined set of options. For open-ended "what?" questions, use cosa / che cosa / che.
• In indirect questions, quale keeps its form. The embedded verb may take the subjunctive in formal registers (non so quale sia) or the indicative in everyday speech (non so qual è).

For the full Italian question system, see Italian Questions: Overview and Questions: Complete Guide. For cosa / che cosa, see Cosa, che cosa, che. For interrogative pronouns as a system, see Interrogative Pronouns.