English grammar Relative clauses

 Relative clauses 

Ok, ok. I know. Another boring English grammar lesson. And on relative clauses.

Don’t worry. I will try not to make it too boring.

Relative clauses are extremely important if you want to speak and write English well.

What is a relative clause?

We use relative clauses to give us extra information about people and things. We use them to make it totally clear which person or thing we are talking about.

Do you know the man that lives across the road?

You can see by the relative clause exactly which man we are talking about.

Defining and non-defining relative clauses

Relative clauses can be classified as defining and non-defining.

In defining relative clauses the relative pronoun defines the noun and it is necessary to understand the sentence.

The non-defining relative clause is extra information that is not needed to understand the sentence.

Defining relative clause

With defining relative clauses we use relative pronouns for:

people – who, that, whom, whose

things – which, that, whose

The pronouns can be either subject or object pronouns. Object pronouns can be omitted from the sentence.

Examples:

Brian likes to live a a country which has good weather. (subject)

THat’s the lady whose car was stolen last week. (subject)

I went to the restaurant (that) Peter recommended. (object)

Do you know the name of the girl (that) we spoke to yesterday? (object)

Non-defining relative clause

Remember here that the information in the relative clause is extra and not always necessary to understand the sentence.

With a non-defining relative clause we use relative pronouns for:

people – who, whom, whose

things – which, whose

Important – We do not use ‘that’

Examples:

Spain, which is in Europe, has a vibrant tourist industry.

Sally, whose car had been stolen, had to take the bus to work.

My neighbour, who lives at number 10, is a car salesman.

The bus, which is normally late, was on time today.

The non-defining relative clauses in these sentences is separated by a comma and is not needed to understand the sentence.

So, there you go. Please watch the video and leave a comment below if you have any doubts.

If you want to study another lesson you can try this one.

If you liked the lesson please consider buying me breakfast.

I also have a number of English courses on curious.com. Please take a look.