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French Relative Pronouns

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Lekha Chaudhari Paithankar
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81 views3 pages

French Relative Pronouns

Uploaded by

Lekha Chaudhari Paithankar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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French Relative Pronouns

When it comes to French, relative pronouns work the same way. These are
the words qui, que, lequel, auquel, duquel, dont and où.

1. qui and que


Qui and que can both be used to refer to persons or things.
The main difference is, qui is used for the subject (or indirect object for
persons) while que is for the direct object.
Qui is also being used after a preposition (à, de or pour)

Qui (subject) could mean who, which, or that.


Que (direct object) could mean who, whom, which, or that.

A few examples:
a. Mon frère, qui a vingt ans, est à l'université. (My brother, who's twenty,
is at university.)

b. *Est-ce qu'il y a un bus qui va au centre-ville? (ls there a bus that goes
to the town centre?)
c. Les amis que je vois le plus sont Léa et Mehdi. (The friends that I see
most are Lea and Mehdi.)
d. Voilà la maison que nous voulons acheter. (That's the house which we
want to buy.)
e. la personne à qui il parle (the person he is speaking to)
f. les enfants pour qui j'ai acheté des bonbons (the children I bought
sweets for)

*Kindly note that que is shortened to qu' if it precedes a word that starts with a
vowel or most words that begin with a letter h.

2. lequel
Lequel is the French relative pronoun counterpart for “which” and it is used for
indirect objects. It follows the prepositions à, de or pour and only used when
referring to things (never about people). In addition, it has to agree with the
noun's gender (masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural).

Masculine singular lequel


Feminine singular laquelle
Masculine plural lesquels
Feminine plural lesquelles

All four means “which”

Some examples:
le livre pour lequel elle est connue (the book she is famous for)
la table sur laquelle j'ai mis mon sac (the table I put my bag on)

Aside from having to agree with the noun's gender and count, you also need
to consider the combinations of words which, in turn, creates an altogether
new word.

For example:

 à + the definite article le becomes au.


 de + the definite article le becomes du.
 à + the definite article les becomes aux.
 de + the definite article les becomes des.

Similarly, lequel changes into different words when combined with the
preposition à and de.

Singular Plural

Masculine lequel lesquels


Feminine laquelle lesquelles

3. dont
Another French relative pronoun is dont.
When translated in English, it means whose, of whom, of which. It may be used to refer to
persons or things. It does not change its form, nor does it have to agree with anything!

Let's see some examples:


Plural noun: les films dont tu parles (the films you are talking about)
Singular noun: la femme dont la voiture est en panne (the woman whose car has broken down)

4. où
This French relative pronoun is used for places and times. Its English counterpart could either
be where, when or even which and that, depending on how it is used.

Où is also used as the question word where (see article on ASKING QUESTIONS IN FRENCH)
and the way it is used as an interrogative pronoun is basically the same as its use as a relative
pronoun. There is an added function however, and that is to refer to a time something occurred.

In short, it covers both place and time in its relative pronoun function and takes the job of “when”
as well, aside from “where”. (Note: the interrogative pronoun “quand” is not as multifunctional
as où and cannot be used as a relative pronoun.)

Some examples:

Paris est la ville où on peut manger les meilleurs escargots. (Paris is the city where we can eat
the best snails.)

C'est l'année où ils ont gagné la coupe du monde. (That's the year they won the world cup.)

In addition, où can also be used after prepositions.

La ville d'où elle vient… The city (where) she's from...

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