Newsletter 012
This or That 2/4: Who/Whom & What/Which
Well, Mrs. Broflovski, that’s a very good question!
The term “relative pronouns” might not mean a lot to you, but we are going to focus on the practical usage of this term and the words that it includes in some context-specific situations.
First things first — yes, that is whoM written in the title. And, no, it’s not the same as who. And, yes, we should still use it.
WHO is used to ask about the subject of a sentence (and when you ask a question, the answer should be a subject pronoun — I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they).
Šavija bought a wedding ring for Perica. / He bought a wedding ring for him.
- Who bought a wedding ring for Perica? — He.*
- Whom did Šavija buy a wedding ring for? — Him.*
WHOM, on the other hand, is used to ask about the object of a sentence (and when you ask a question, the answer should be an object pronoun — me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them).
*If you are still in two minds, you can imagine that you are asking a question about a male person and answer your own question. If the answer is, as illustrated above, he, then the question word is who. If the answer is him, then the question word is whom.
Here’s a quick exercise to help you with this dilemma. And another one, just in case.
The usage of the other pair depends on whether a choice is given or not.
WHICH is used only when we have a given context. Here are some examples:
- We are in a bakery and we want a cookie, but the salesperson asks — WHICH one? (because you can see the options).
- We are (or were) looking at Fantasy Premier League players and discussing options for the new season, and one friend asks — so WHICH players are you going to choose (because we discussed and saw the options).
WHAT, on the other hand, is more general and we don’t need a context for it:
- We are sitting on the bus commuting to work, and one colleague asks us (without talking about it before) — WHAT is your favorite cookie? (a general question without any specific context, and it can be any cookie in the world).
- We are talking about football in general and one friend asks — WHAT is your favorite league? (out of all leagues in the world).
Here is an exercise to understand this contrast a bit better.
A bonus distinction is between who and which, and again, it is easy to remember:
- WHO — for people.
- WHICH — for everything else (even animals, although we can use WHO if we give a personal name to one).
- THAT — can be used instead of both who and which (unless it comes after a comma, e.g. My friend, who is a doctor, lives in Sweden. or The beer, which you bought me yesterday, was horrible! Please buy Jelen next time. — we cannot use that instead of who or which in these two sentences because of the commas).
Guess what? Another two exercises, yay! B1 level, and B2 level.
That’s all, folks! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Take time to do the exercises and you’ll have this memorized in no time.
Thanks for reading! Until next week,
Take care!
