Bonjour Rod,

Ah, one of my favorite French verbs. Here is the lesson that covers «manquer à»:
Using manquer (à) to say you miss someone or something emotionally in French

Here is the lesson on using «plaire». I am sure there are other verbs in French that use the structure reversal but these are the two that I am most familiar with.

Basically, one states in French that «someone is missing to me» Quelqu'un me manque. when translated --> I miss (or lack) SOMEONE.

Please read over the referenced lesson above and if that does not provide clarification,
here's another link that might help:
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/manquer-lesson/

I hope you find this useful.
Bonne chance.

What would be the most helpful would be an exercise with 10-20 questions where I was asked to select between Qu'est-ce que and Qu-est-ce qui. That is really the question - will I be able to select the right one in the right situation. 

Are there any focused exercises like this anywhere in Kwiziq? I heard there were but I haven't managed to find them.

Bonjour Suzanne,

While I know the grammar explanation to your question, the simplest way that I have found to remember the difference is this:

qu'est-ce que is usually followed by a noun subject

qu'est-ce qui is usually followed by a verb

While I understand this is an over-simplification, the structure in a phrase almost always is like this.

The easiest way to understand qu'est-ce que vs qu'est-ce qui is simply to ignore the "qu'est-ce".

The main task is working out whether "what" is the subject of the verb or an interrogative (or question) word.

Qui replaces the subject of the verb. Eg. What moves: qui bouge?

Que replaces what' where it's not the subject of the verb. Eg. What do you want? Qu'est-ce que tu veux (tu is the subject of the verb).

This is made more complicated because, in some of the examples, qui is used with the passe composé and with difficult verbs like manquer and plaisir where French reverses the subject and object. (It might have been better if these trickier examples were in a different lesson.)