​Relative Pronouns

​Relative pronouns are something that you use every day. When you say, ''Give me the book that is on the table,'' you're using the relative pronoun ''that.'' Relative pronouns are found at the beginning of a group of words that provide a description or additional information about a word or an idea that comes before it in the sentence.

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​Notice that quien can only mean ''who'' or 'whom'', so it can only be used when describing people. All of the other relative pronouns can mean ''that,'' ''which,'' ''who,'' or ''whom'' depending on the context. In a sentence, relative pronouns always come after the word they describe and before the additional information about that word, as shown in the following sample sentences:

​Forms of Relative Pronouns

​Que only has one form, so you'll never need to change it. Quien is used to describe one person, and has just one other form. You use quienes to describe more than one person. For the other relative pronouns, el que and la cual, you change the form to match the gender and number of the word or idea it's describing.

​Here's what those forms look like:

​For example, Tu hermana fue la que me ayudó (or, ''Your sister was the one who helped me'') uses the feminine singular form of la que to match the word hermana (sister).

​Que, Quien, Quienes

• ​The first group is for relative pronouns that are used immediately after the idea that they describe. This means that the relative pronoun is the next word after the noun in the sentence.

• There are only three words in this group: que, quien, and quienes. You use que right after the word, like in the example sentence: El libro que está en la mesa es de Julia. Here que is the relative pronoun, and it comes right after the words El libro. The words está en la mesa, which are after the word que, describe libro.

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If the word that comes before your comma or short preposition is a person, you shouldn't use que. You'll need to use either quien (for one person) or quienes (for two people). That's why we use quien in the second sample sentence describing Juan. However, if the word before the comma or short preposition is a place, idea, or thing, you'll need to use que.

​Lesson Summary

• In this lesson, you learned about the four relative pronouns in Spanish - que, quien, el que, la que.

• ​How to match the gender and number of the pronoun to the word that it describes.

• You also learned when to use each pronoun in a sentence.

  • If the pronoun comes after the word it describes, you use que.

  • If there is only a short preposition between the word being described and the relative pronoun you use either que (for things, places and ideas) or quien or quienes (for people).

  • When there are longer prepositions or other words between the word that's described and the relative pronoun, you need to use a form of either el que.