Breakdown of Какая это страница?
это
this / it is
какой
which/what kind of (m, sister forms: какая, какое)
страница
page
Questions & Answers about Какая это страница?
Why does the sentence use какая instead of какой?
The question word какой (which/what) acts like an adjective, so it must match the noun it asks about in gender, number, and case. Because страница (page) ends in -а, it is a feminine noun. Therefore, you must use the feminine form of the question word, which is какая.
If страница is feminine, why do we use the neuter это instead of the feminine эта?
Here, это is acting as a generic placeholder meaning "this is" or "is this". When used this way, it never changes its ending, regardless of the noun's gender. If you wanted to group "this" and "page" together into a single phrase ("which is this page?"), you would match the gender and use эта: Какая эта страница? But for the standard "Which page is this?", we use the generic это.
Can какая also mean "what kind of"?
Yes! The word какой (and its feminine form какая) can mean either "which" or "what kind of" depending on the context. In this sentence, "What kind of page is this?" is a perfectly valid translation, though "Which page is this?" is usually what someone means when looking at a book.
Is the word order strict? Could I say Это какая страница?
Russian word order is quite flexible. You can absolutely say Это какая страница?, but putting the question word at the very beginning (Какая это страница?) is the most natural and standard way to ask for specific information in Russian.
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