文法跟讀 In-Tense Ep.050: Relative Pronouns 關係代名詞

Welcome to 15mins.today the home of English Shadowing. I'm your host Gavin and this is InTense Episode 50. Well guys, we're still looking at pronouns and today, we are looking at relative pronouns and what they do is, they begin what is called a subordinate clause. Don't worry about that, there are only five of them right, that, which, who, whom, those. 

So, those are the ones so you'll notice that that could also have been demonstrative pronouns, but you have to look at the sentence to see if it's not. Don't worry about it, for the most part I would not worry about what these things are in particular. I mean great if you know the difference between a relative pronoun and a demonstrative one as long as you could recognize it as a pronoun that's all you need to do, if you have to do that I'm pretty sure. So, let's look at some examples of these and again don't worry about it too much. Just try and recognize the pronouns.

Did he say that he was hungry? Yes, he said that he was hungry.

Did he say that he was hungry? No, he did not say that he was hungry.

Is that the dog which bit you? Yes, that is the dog which bit me.

Is that the dog which bit you? No, that is not the dog which bit me.

Is that the girl whom you spoke of? Yes, that is the girl whom I spoke of.

Is that the girl whom you spoke of? No, that is not the girl whom I spoke of.

Is that the boy whose phone rang? Yes, that is the boy whose phone rang.

Is that the boy whose phone rang? No, that is not the boy whose phone rang.

Is the person who ate the cake in trouble? Yes, the person who ate the cake is in trouble.

Is the person who ate the cake in trouble? No, the person who ate the cake is not in trouble.

Is that the man of whom you spoke? Yes, that is the man of whom I spoke.

Is that of the man of whom you spoke? No, that is not the man of whom I spoke.

Is that the ball which was inflated? Yes, that is the ball which was inflated.

Is that the ball which was inflated? No, that is not the ball which was inflated.

Is that the boy who cried wolf? Yes, that is the boy who cried wolf.

Is that the boy who cried wolf? No, that is not the boy who cried wolf.

Did the man who cheated you apologize? Yes, the man who cheated me apologized.

Did the man who cheated you apologize? No, the man who cheated me did not apologize.

Well there you go guys! I can honestly tell you, I struggled very hard with this one. Again, what I had to do, I had to go on Google. What I did find? That on Google they actually showed some other ones that they called the same as relative pronouns, but in my grammar book, or the grammar book that I'm busy using for this, they say they only have five. So, it's quite confusing again, sometimes you get things that some people agree with and some don't.

I recently had compound nouns, I remember those and I remember I thought baseball was not a compound noun and then I found out it was a compound noun, but strangely if you search that on Google most people say it's a compound noun, but there were a few who said it wasn't. So, yeah it’s not always good fast or easy, but the bottom line is you know that these are pronouns. Now so as long as you recognize it as a pronoun, what it is reflexive, relative ,whatever it's okay. It doesn't matter as long as you know what part of speech it is and these are not nouns per se, they are pronouns. Ok, so keep practicing and I'll catch you in the next one, bye!