Five-minute Spanish Lessons - Lesson 15.

Relative Pronouns I

Who, which, that / el cual, la cual, los cuales, las cuales, quien, quienes, que, el que, la que

What is a relative pronoun?

These words, we call relative pronouns, are used to join two sentences or two ideas into one sentence.

Two sentences:

Tarzan is sitting in a tree. He likes Jane.

Tarzán está sentado en un árbol. A él le gusta Jane.

One sentence:

Tarzan, who is sitting in a tree, likes Jane.

A Tarzán, que está sentado en un árbol, le gusta Jane.

Let's look at some rules for using relative pronouns in English and then compare them to the rules for the use of their Spanish equivalents.

The phrases made with relative pronouns are called relative clauses. There are two types of relative clause:

1) Identifying relative clauses.

(Also called defining or restrictive relative clauses.)

2) Non-identifying relative clauses.

(Also called non-defining or non-restrictive relative clauses.)

By identifying relative clauses we mean a sentence which does exactly that. It identifies a noun within the clause. Let's consider the following sentences. I have underlined the possible relative pronouns:

The people that / who saw the accident were shocked.

La gente que vio el accidente quedó aturdida.

The trees that / which are suffering from the disease are going to be cut down.

Los árboles que sufren de la enfermedad serán talados.

The boy that / who helps in the shop is off sick.

El chico que trabaja en la tienda está de baja por enfermedad.

In the first sentence, who were shocked? Clearly, the people that / who saw the accident; la gente que vio el accidente. We are identifying the group of people who / that were shocked. In the second example, we are identifying which trees are to be cut down: those that / which have the disease; los árboles que sufren de la enfermedad. And in the third example we have identified who is off sick: the boy that / who helps in the shop; el chico que trabaja en la tienda.

In fact, if we take out the middle parts of each sentence: eg,: that / who saw the accident - que vio el accidente, we are left with:

The people were shocked.

La gente quedó aturdida.

We don't know which people - (qué gente) we are talking about.

Now let's take a look at the same sentences but this time modified by commas and I have also changed the nouns the relative pronouns refer to (antecedents) to make the examples clearer:

My friends, who saw the accident, were shocked.

Mis amigas, que / quienes / las cuales vieron el accidente, quedaron aturdidas.

Those beautiful trees, which are suffering from the disease, are going to be cut down.

Esos preciosos árboles, que / los cuales sufren de la enfermedad, serán talados.

John, who helps in the shop, is off sick.

Juan, que / quien / el cual trabaja en la tienda, está de baja por enfermedad.

In the first example, we are not identifying who saw the accident. The speaker is talking about his friends. But we have added some extra information about my shocked friends. The extra information is that they saw an accident. In the second example, we already know which trees the speaker is referring to: those beautiful trees - Esos preciosos árboles. The extra information is that they are suffering from desease. Similarly, we have already identified John - Juan and we are also told he works in the shop. So these phrases are called non-identifying relative clauses.

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