A2
que, quien, donde, cuyo
How Spanish relative pronouns work, why que covers both people and things, and the accent that separates them from question words.
Que is the default, and it covers people and things, subjects and objects alike. English needs who, which and that for the same job.
el hombre que habla
the man that speaks
the man who’s speaking
el libro que leo
the book that I-read
the book I’m reading
It cannot be dropped
English deletes it constantly — the book I’m reading. Spanish never does.
el libro leo
el libro que leo
The relative pronoun is compulsory, however redundant it looks from English.
quien is for people, after a preposition
la mujer con quien hablé
the woman with whom I-spoke
the woman I spoke to
Note that the preposition comes first. Spanish cannot strand it at the end the way English does.
la mujer que hablé con
la mujer con quien hablé
A Spanish sentence never ends on a preposition. It moves to the front, taking the relative pronoun with it.
donde for places, cuando for times
la ciudad donde nací
the city where I-was-born
the city where I was born
No accent — the accented dónde is the question word, and the difference is the whole distinction between asking and describing.
cuyo is whose, and it agrees with what is owned
el escritor cuyos libros leo
the writer whose (m.pl.) books I-read
the writer whose books I read
Cuyos is plural because libros is, not because of the writer. It is formal and belongs to writing; in speech people rephrase around it.
el que and el cual
After a preposition, or when the sentence would otherwise be ambiguous, Spanish uses a longer form: la casa en la que vivo, el problema del cual hablamos. Both are correct; el que is the more spoken.