| pronoun | for | example |
|---|---|---|
| who | people | The woman who lives next door is a doctor. |
| which | things, animals | The car which I bought is red. |
| that | people or things (only defining clauses) | The book that you gave me is great. |
| whose | possession | The man whose car was stolen called the police. |
| where / when | place / time | The town where I grew up. The day when we met. |
Defining clause (no commas): it tells you which one; without it the sentence is incomplete. The relative pronoun can be left out when it is the object: The book (that) you gave me… The man (who) I met… But not when it is the subject: The man who called (necessary).
Non-defining clause (with commas): extra information about something already identified. Never that, never left out:
My brother, who lives in Bern, is a teacher. (I have only one brother.)
My brother who lives in Bern is a teacher. (I have several; this is the one in Bern.)
which can refer to a whole sentence: He didn't call, which surprised me.
Prepositions: usually at the end in everyday English (the house I live in), at the front in formal style with whom / which (the house in which I live, the person to whom I wrote). After a preposition: whom, not “who”.
Translate the words from your reading, review them as flashcards and practise with gap-fill sentences.
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