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Defining relative clauses: who, which, that, where, whose
B1 B1 grammar · lesson 7 of 23
Defining relative clauses tell us exactly which person, thing or place we mean. They help you join two short sentences into one longer, more natural sentence.
What is a defining relative clause?
A defining relative clause comes straight after a noun and gives necessary information about it. Without it, we don’t know who or what we are talking about.
The woman who lives next door is a nurse. (Which woman? The one who lives next door.)
Relative pronouns
| Pronoun | Used for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| who | people | the man who called you |
| which | things, animals | the book which I lent you |
| that | people or things (informal) | the bus that goes to the airport |
| where | places | the café where we met |
| whose | possession (his, her, their) | the girl whose bag was stolen |
A dentist is a person who looks after your teeth.
This is the phone which I bought last week.
Have you seen the keys that were on the table?
That’s the hotel where we stayed last summer.
I have a friend whose father is a pilot.
The film (that) we watched last night was boring.
Mia is the girl (who) I met at the party.
When can we leave out the pronoun?
Look at the verb after the pronoun. If the pronoun is the subject of the clause, we must keep it. If it is the object, we can leave it out.
- The man who helped me was kind. (who = subject of helped: keep it)
- The man (who) I helped was kind. (I is the subject; who = object: you can omit it)
Note: whose can never be left out, and where is usually kept too.
Common mistakes
✗ The man which works in the bank is my uncle.
✓ The man who works in the bank is my uncle.
✗ This is the book that I read it last year.
✓ This is the book that I read last year.
✗ The boy who his mother is a teacher is in my class.
✓ The boy whose mother is a teacher is in my class.
✗ The restaurant which we had dinner was great.
✓ The restaurant where we had dinner was great.