THAT vs. WHICH vs. WHOSE | Stop Confusing Them!

Hey, everyone. Welcome or welcome back. A huge shout out to my channel members. You chose today's topic. If you want to help me pick the next one, click the join button below and join our amazing community of English learners. I recently added some new perks, including live streams, which a lot of you have been asking me about lately. I'll link the video here where I give more details about memberships on my channel and exactly what perks you get at each level. Today, we're diving into a topic that can seem really confusing at first, and that is relative pronouns and relative clauses. Fancy words, I know. But I'm going to break them down as simply as I can in this video so that by the end, you won't have any more questions on this topic. But of course, if you do, write them in the comments. Okay, let's go. First, let's break down the basics. A relative pronoun is words like that, which, who, whose, or whom. And these words help connect extra information about a noun. A relative clause is that extra information. Think of it like a mini description that comes after a noun. Now, what's important to understand when learning relative clauses is that sometimes they're defining and sometimes they're non-defining. So first, let's look at the relative pronoun, who, because this pronoun stays the same whether the relative clause is defining or non-defining. And here are the examples. Let's say there's a crowd of people and I want to point out to you which person is my teacher. I can say, the woman who is wearing a red coat is my teacher. The clause, which begins with the relative pronoun, in this case, who, who is wearing a red coat, tells us which woman we're talking about. Without it, you wouldn't know which woman is my teacher. Now, let's say we're just having a conversation about my teacher. And I say, Mrs. Smith, who is wearing a red coat, is my teacher. Here, the clause, who is wearing a red coat, is just giving extra information about Mrs. Smith. But if you take it out, you still know who I'm talking about. Mrs. Smith is my teacher. The relative pronoun, who, is always used to replace people. But what if we're talking about an animal or a thing? Then we use that or which. And when you use either depends on if the relative clause is defining or non-defining. So use that when the clause is defining, meaning the information that follows is essential to the meaning of the sentence. For example, you can use the car that I bought last year. Here, the clause that I bought last year is essential. You need to know which car I'm talking about. Maybe I have two or more cars, but I mean the one that I bought last year. Now, which is used with non-defining clauses. So the information is simply extra or not essential to the meaning of the sentence. For example, you can use my car, which I bought last year. The fact that I bought my car last year is extra information. The point of my sentence is that you can use my car. Maybe I only have the one and we both know which car I'm talking about. It would be incorrect to use that instead of which in this sentence. You couldn't say, you can use my car that I bought last year. We can't use that for extra information. Now, let's take a look at whose. Whose is used to talk about possession. It shows who owns something and it works for both people and things. Let's take this sentence. The girl whose dog always barks is my neighbor. Here, the dog belongs to the girl and I'm using this fact about her, the fact that her dog always barks, to describe which girl I mean. Here's another example. The house whose windows are broken needs repairs. So here, the windows belong to the house. And of course, a house is a thing, not a person. And even though it sounds like whose would only be used for people, it can be used for objects as well. One last thing you should know about relative pronouns is that in informal English, you can sometimes drop the pronoun altogether. And that's only when it's the object of the clause and not the subject. So let's look at some examples so you know what I mean. In the sentence, the truck that he drives is red. You could omit or leave out the pronoun in that sentence. You could say, the truck he drives is red. And this sounds a little easier or it flows better. So in speaking, we often drop the relative pronoun when it refers to the object. In this case, that refers to the truck, which is the object of the sentence. Now in the sentence, the person who drives the truck is Dan. You cannot omit who because it refers to the subject. The subject is the person. So you have to include the word who here. So yeah, if it's referring to the object, you can leave it out. Like, the book I read was amazing. That is implied, but I don't say it. Maybe in formal writing, you might want to keep the relative pronoun in the sentence. But in casual conversation, you can leave it out. I hope this video helped to clear things up when using relative pronouns. If it did, give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more lessons, which I post every Sunday. And as a member, you get access to my videos even earlier. So click the Join button below to learn more. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye for now.