Syntaxdifficulty 3
relative-pronouns
Sentenceque (that — most common, both people and things), quien / quienes (who, whom — only people, mostly after preposition), cuyo/a/os/as (whose — agrees with the thing possessed, not the possessor), el/la/los/las que (the one(s) who/that), donde, cuando, como as relatives (no accent — interrogative twins carry one). Relatives never take an accent.
Examples
El hombre que vino.
→ The man who came.
que — most common relative, works for people and things.
El amigo con quien hablo.
→ The friend with whom I speak.
quien preferred after preposition when antecedent is a person.
El libro cuyo autor murió.
→ The book whose author died.
cuyo agrees with `autor` (the thing possessed), not `libro`.
Words in this rule
| Word | English |
|---|---|
| como | as |
| cuando | when |
| que | than |
| donde | where |
| cuya | whose |
| cuyas | whose |
| cuyo | whose |
| cuyos | whose |
| quien | who |
| quienes | who (plural) |
Practice Spanish in context
Write AI sentences that force each case of relative-pronouns using your Easy vocab — or read articles where we underline the words that trigger each rule.