Relative clauses with who, which, and that.


A.U: I saw Ronaldo the other night.

A.F: Ronaldo? The man who plays in Brazilian football team. ( Who plays in …… tells us which man A.U means)

A.U: I went to see Mr.Ahmed, who is an.M.D in Unilever of Pakistan.

A.F: Unilever of Pakistan?

A.U: A multi-national company that sells every kind of products across the world. (that sells every kind…………………tells us the company which A.U means)

Sometimes we can use an adjective or phrase to identify someone or something.

Adjective : The tall girl the new student the tan girl

Phrase : the man in the suit the girl looking out of a window the shop on the corner.

But when we need a longer explanation, we can use relative clauses.

The girl who was looking out of window.

The student who is wearing a fading blue shirt.

The girl who is having sun bath.

The lorry that was burnt down in Saturday riots.

WHO, WHICH, and THAT

The relative pronouns who, which, and that go after the noun and at the beginning of the relative clause.

Who refers to people.

A.B is the man who owns enormous pits.

I don’t like people who tell jokes all the time.

The little girl who sat next to me on the coach ate sweets the whole way.

Ahmed is pretty annoyed with the person who stole his cell phone yesterday.

That and which refer to things. That is more usual than Which, especially in conversation.
The car that won the race looked very futuristic, did not it?

They have captured all the animals that scaped from the zoo.

The children saw the actual spacecraft that landed on the moon.

Which can be a little formal.

There are several restaurants which do Sunday lunches.

Is Unilever the company which was taken over last year.

Note: We don’t use another pronoun like he or it with the relative pronoun.

The relative pronoun as object in relative clause.

A) Subject and Object.

A relative pronoun such as who or that can be the subject of a relative clause.

• A.U talked to a couple who were staying at the camp-site. (Not they were staying at the camp-site)
• The guest who came this morning was from Islamabad.
• The Fax that came this morning is from U.S Embassy. (That came…..it came)


A relative pronoun can also be an object of a relative clause.

A.F and A.U are visiting a building that they dreamt to purchase. (In this sentence of relative clause, we can’t write him, her, it, them, etc.)

Leaving out the relative pronoun

We can leave out the relative pronoun when it is the object of the relative clause.We do this especially in spoken English.Compare these example:

With object pronoun

• The man who Ahmed saw at the seminar is Rana Bhagwandas.
• That is an ancient graveyard that we visited.

Without object pronoun
• The man Ahmed saw at the seminar is Rana Bhagwandas.
• That is an ancient graveyard we visited.
• We don’t know the name of the person the police are questioning.
• The jacket you are wearing is falling to pieces.

Remember that we can not leave out a pronoun when it is the subject of a relative clause.

• The man who spoke to Ahmed is Sana’s husband.

IF I DO……AND IF I DID

1) Suppose somebody (Mr.A) has lost his cell phone. He thinks it may be at Mr.B’s house.

A: I think I left my cell phone at your house. Have you seen it?

B: No, but I will have a look when I get home.

In this example, B feels there is a real possibility that she will find the phone. So he says: If I find…………………., I’ll………………………………………….


2) B says: If I found an ankle in the street, I’d (I would) take it to the police.


This is different type of situation. Here, B is not thinking about a real possibility; he is imagining the situation and doesn’t expect to find an ornament in the street. So he says: If I found……………… I’d (not ‘ if I find…..I’ll…….’).

When you imagine something like this, you use if + past ( if I found/if you were/ if we did not etc). But the meaning is not past:


• What would you do if you won a million rupees? ( We don’t expect this to happen).


• I don’t really want to go to their party, but I probably will go. They would be offended if I did not go. (not, They would be offended if I don’t go).
We do not normally use would in the if-part of the sentence:

• I’d be very frightened if somebody pointed a gun at me. ( not, if somebody point).


• If I did not go to their party, they’d be offended. (not, if I wouldn’t go).

But it is possible to say ‘if…would’ when you ask somebody to do something:

• (from a formal letter) I would be grateful if you would send me your brochure as soon as possible).

In the other part of the sentence (not the if-part) we use would (‘d)/ would not:

• If you took more exercise, you would probably feel healthier.

• Would you mind If I used your phone?

• I’m not tired enough to go to bed yet. I would not sleep ( if I went to bed now).

Could & might are also possible:

• If you took exercise, you might feel healthier. (= it is possible that you would feel healthier)

If it stopped raining, we could go out. (= we would be able to go out)