Look at these two questions asking What in English:
What are you doing?
-> "you" is doing "what"; here "what" is the object of the action
What is making that noise?
-> "What" is doing the action of making the noise; it's the subject, the "acting" element of the sentence
-> "you" is doing "what"; here "what" is the object of the action
What is making that noise?
-> "What" is doing the action of making the noise; it's the subject, the "acting" element of the sentence
In the first case, you can use qu'est-ce que, que or quoi in French:
Qu'est-ce que tu fais ?
Tu fais quoi ?
See Questions with qui, que, quoi, quand, où, comment, pourquoi, combien
BUT
Look at these other examples:
BUT
In the second case, you will only be able to use qu'est-ce qui + [verb clause]:
Qu'est-ce qui fait ce bruit ?
Look at these other examples:
You will find this structure with a lot of "reversed" expressions, such plaire, manquer, etc...
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