Grammar: relative pronouns and relative clauses

Many students find relative clauses a difficult grammar point, but if you can use them correctly, you will significantly improve your writing. First, though, we need to look at relative pronouns.

There are lots of different pronouns in English and some you will already know: I, me, mine, you, yours, he, him, his etc. Relative pronouns are used to make questions and give extra information about people, places, times, things, and possessions.

We use who to talk about people: Who is the best teacher?
We use which to talk about things: Which is the best football team?
We use where to talk about places: Where you can eat the best fish and chips?
We use when to talk about times: When do you leave Manchester?
We use whose to talk about possessions: Whose dictionary is this?

We also use relative pronouns when we make relative clauses. We know that a sentence usually needs a subject and a verb. The part of a sentence which contains a subject and a verb is called a clause. Sometimes we can join two sentences together. We can do this in different ways. Let's take two sentences and try and join them together:

The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world. It was painted by da Vinci.

We can join these sentences using a conjunction (and)

The Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the world and it was painted by da Vinci.

or we can use a relative clause. We are talking about the painting, so we will use which:

The Mona Lisa, which is the most famous painting in the world, was painted by da Vinci. OR
The Mona Lisa, which was painted by da Vinci, is the most famous painting in the world.

Here are some more examples:

Germany, who beat Brazil 7-1, will win the World Cup.
The Hilton hotel, where you can have a drink on the 23rd floor, is the tallest building in Manchester.
I like evenings best, when the sun is going down and the sky is turning red.
That dog, whose owner never feeds it, is always barking!

Notice that we always put the relative pronoun after the noun it refers to. (Germany beat Brazil 7-0 who will win the World Cup.)

Be careful with where: we use where to talk about places, but we can also use in which/at which/ to which/from which. We do not use where with a preposition. After where we need a subject (and the place becomes an object); after which we need a verb (because the place is the subject). For example:

The shop where I bought my shoes. 
The shop which I bought my shoes from. 
The shop where I bought my shoes from. 
The shop which sells shoes.

Here are some exercises to practise which or where;
1. http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/373.html 
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There are two types of relative clause. These are called defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses.

Non-defining relative clauses

Non-defining relative clauses tell us extra information about a noun. We know which noun we are talking about. They don't tell us essential information. We use commas around the relative clause. For example:

The Mona Lisa, which is the most famous painting in the world, was painted by da Vinci. We know which painting. The painting called "The Mona Lisa".
Germany, who beat Brazil 7-1, will win the World Cup. We know the name of the team.
The Hilton hotel, where you can have a drink on the 23rd floor, is the tallest building in Manchester. We know the name of the hotel.
I like evenings best, when the sun is going down and the sky is turning red. We know when evenings are.
That dog, whose owner never feeds it, always barks! We know which dog: "that dog". We are pointing to it.

• extra information
• use commas
• use who/which. We cannot use that 

Defining relative clauses

Defining relative clauses tell us essential information about a noun. We do not know which person/thing we are talking about. We need more information. We do not use commas around the relative clauses. For example:

The painting which was stolen last night is very valuable. The painting which was not stolen is not very valuable. There is more than one painting. We need essential information to tell us which painting we are talking about: the stolen painting, or the not stolen painting?
The team who won the World Cup were very popular. There are many football teams. We need to know which team we are talking about.
I like evenings when the sun is bright and red. There are lots of different kinds of evenings. We need to know which evenings are preferred.
The dog whose owner is tall always barks. The dog whose owner is short is always quiet. There are two dogs. We need essential information to tell us which dog always barks.

• essential infomation
• don't use commas
• use who/which. We can use that instead of who/which
• can remove the pronoun when the pronoun talks about an object, for example:

I bought some shoes. The shoes are black. Both these sentences talk about shoes, but in the first sentence, shoes are the object (What did I buy? I bought some shoes). We can join these sentences like this:

The shoes which I bought are black.
The shoes that I bought are black.
The shoes I bought are black.

When the relative pronoun talks about an object, we can remove it  :

I saw a film last night. It was really interesting becomes

The film which I watched last night was really interesting.
The film that I watched last night was really interesting.
The film I watched last night was really interesting.

Here are some exercises for you to practise:


1. https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/intermediate3/grammar/file10/nef_int_grammar10_a01?cc=gb&selLanguage=en 
2. https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/intermediate3/grammar/file10/nef_int_grammar10_a02?cc=gb&selLanguage=en 


3. http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/relative-clauses-exercise-1.html 
4. http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/relative-clauses-exercise-2.html 
5. http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/relative-clauses-exercise-3.html 
6. http://www.perfect-english-grammar.com/relative-clauses-exercise-4.html 
7. http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/clause-phrase-and-sentence/verb-patterns/relative-clauses