The more you’ll progress in your knowledge of the French language, the more you’ll need to make complex sentences. This is when French relative pronouns get involved!

Qui, que, dont, où, and lequel: You’ve probably heard these small words a lot, yet, without fully grasping their role. Their correct use can be difficult to apprehend at first, but once you’ve understood the role of each relative pronoun, you’ll be able to master them one by one.

In this post, we’ll introduce you to the concept of relative pronouns in French. We’ll help you understand their general role and meaning in a sentence, as it often doesn’t translate directly into English. Then, we’ll go a bit more into the detail of each of these five relative pronouns before finishing up with a section on indefinite relative pronouns.

What are French Relative Pronouns?

Before diving into the topic of French relative pronouns, or pronoms relatifs, let’s make sure we’re all set on what pronouns are in French. Just like in English, French uses pronouns to replace nouns in a sentence. The most common are the subject pronouns, which are probably already familiar to you: je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, and elles.

Relative pronouns are another category of pronouns. However, when it comes to relative pronouns, these small words do not replace the noun; instead, they stand for the noun and refer back to it, in order to give extra information about the noun.

There are five relative pronouns: qui, que, où, dont, and lequel (with its variants). We’ll see later in this post how to use each of them.

The grammatical purpose of les pronoms relatifs is to introduce a clause within a sentence. Relative pronouns are connectors between the main clause and the relative clause. In other words, they connect the second part of the sentence, called the relative clause, to the thing or the person mentioned in the first part of the sentence, called the main clause.

• J’ai parlé avec la secrétaire qui lui a donné un rendez-vous. – I spoke with the secretary who gave him an appointment.

• Voici le cadeau d’anniversaire que tu lui a offert il y a deux ans. – Here’s the birthday gift [that] you gave her two years ago.

• C’est le nouveau film dont tout le monde parle. – It’s the new movie [that] everybody is talking about.

As you can see in these examples, each sentence is composed of two clauses, one main clause and one relative clause, linked by a relative pronoun. It’s important to note that French relative pronouns cannot be omitted, as is sometimes the case in English.

How and when to use Relative Pronouns in French

One of the tricky points in learning how to use relative pronouns in French is that they do not have a direct translation into English and function quite differently. French relative pronouns are impersonal and invariable, except for lequel, and can act as subjects, objects, or objects of a preposition.

Most of the time, qui, que, où, dont, and lequel are translated by that, when, where, which, who, whom, and whose, but not consistently in the same way.

Let’s see each of these in more detail.

Qui and Que in French

Qui and que are among the most frequently used relative pronouns in French. They can generally be used in contexts where who, whom, which, and that are used in English.

The difference between qui and que is that qui is used for the subject (or indirect object for persons) while que is used for the direct object.

In other words, to choose between qui and que you must figure out whether the relative pronoun is used in place of the subject of the sentence, or for the direct object. If it’s a subject, we use qui. If it’s a direct object, we used que. Let’s see this with a few examples.

• Voici le livre que nous avons choisi. – Here’s the book [that] we chose.

• Ils se sont rencontrés dans le restaurant que tu vois devant toi. – They met at the restaurant [that] you see in front of you.

• Nous n’avons pas trouvé la personne qui a volé l’argent. – We haven’t found the person who stole the money.

• Ma grand-mère, qui souffre d’Alzheimer, est en maison de repos. – My grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, is in a nursing home.

If the grammatical rule seems too complicated to remember, there’s an easier way to understand the difference between qui and que. As you can see from the previous examples, if the subject of the sentence comes between the relative pronoun and the verb, we should use qui. But if the verb comes directly after the relative pronouns, we should use que.

Dont in French

Dont is another relative pronoun you’ll meet quite often, but you may still wonder when to use dont in French. Indeed, dont can have multiple translations in English depending on the context: whose, of / from whom, and of / from which, but also that and with.

The French relative pronoun dont is used for possession and refers back to a person or a thing. It replaces the French preposition de, which introduces a person or a thing to give extra information about it.

We’ll provide both options in our examples here to give an idea of how dont replaces de. Keep in mind that many of the translations we offer in English are pretty awkward, and that we’re just providing them to demonstrate how to use dont in French!

• C’est l’appartement dont ils ont toujours rêvé. – It’s the apartment, about which they’ve always dreamed. – Ils ont toujours rêvé de cet appartement. – They’ve always dreamed of this apartment.

• C’était quand ce voyage en Argentine dont ils n’arrêtent pas de parler ? – It was when, that trip to Argentina about which they can’t stop talking? – Ils n’arrêtent pas de parler de ce voyage en Argentine. – They can’t stop talking about this trip to Argentina.

• Connais-tu la femme dont la petite soeur est tombée malade ? – Do you know the woman whose younger sister got sick? – La petite soeur de cette femme est tombée malade. – The younger sister of that woman got sick.

• Je te raconte l’histoire de l’homme dont je suis tombée amoureuse. – I’m telling you the story of the man with whom I fell in love. – Je suis tombée amoureuse de cet homme. – I fell in love with this man.

Où in French

Among all the relative pronouns in French, où is a bit simpler to master than the others. It is used to give information about places and times. This is why, in English, the relative pronoun où is translated by both where and when.

Remember, however, that in French we always need to include the relative pronoun, whereas in English it is sometimes optional. We nonetheless include it each time in our examples here, even where the English version can be omitted.

• C’est le pays où aura lieu la prochaine Coupe du Monde. – It’s the country where the next World Cup will take place.

• La France est le pays où l’on trouve le plus grand nombre de variétés de fromages. – France is the country where we find the greatest variety of cheese.

• C’est l’année où tu as eu ton diplôme. – That’s the year [when] you graduated.

• Mardi, c’est le jour où il va jouer au foot. – Tuesday is the day [when] he plays soccer.

Be careful in differentiating between ou vs où! The relative pronoun où, written with an accent, should not be confused with the French coordinating conjunction ou, which translates as or in English and links two comparative clauses. Also, in contrast to its use here as a relative pronoun, où is also used differently as a question word.

Lequel in French

Lequel is the last of our five French relative pronouns. Often translated as which, lequel is used in place of indirect objects and always follows a French preposition. In addition, lequel is always used to refer back to things and not to people.

While the relative pronouns we have seen until now were all invariable, meaning that they do not change form to agree in number and gender with the noun, this is not the case for lequel. This relative pronoun has different forms based on the gender and number of the noun it agrees with. Here are its variants:

Let’s see these different forms in sentences:

• Voilà le commissariat dans lequel j’ai déposé plainte. – There’s the police station in which I filed a complaint.

• As-tu vu les véhicules pour lesquels ils ont dépensé une fortune ? – Did you see the vehicles for which they spent a fortune?

• J’étais chez moi sur la date à laquelle vous faites référence. – I was at home on the date you are referring to.

• Je suis très reconnaissant de ces activités, sans lesquelles je ne m’en serais pas sortie. – I’m very thankful for these activities, without which I would not have made it.

In addition to the four base forms of lequel we saw above, lequel has other variants when it follows the prepositions à and de:

Lequel + à

Lequel + de

We won’t enter into the details of all variants, but here are a couple of examples to grasp the idea of how they are used:

• C’est un sujet auquel il accorde trop d’importance. – This is a topic on which he puts too much emphasis.

• Ils ont tenu treize réunions, au cours desquelles ils ont enfin décidé d’abandonner le projet. – They held thirteen meetings, during which they ultimately decided to abandon the project.

Indefinite Relative Pronouns

As we’ve seen previously, the relative pronouns qui, que, dont, où, and lequel have a specific antecedent (a person or a thing) they refer to. When this is not the case, and the antecedent is unknown, we use indefinite relative pronouns instead.

As today’s post aimed at introducing you to the French relative pronouns, we won’t go into as much detail on how to use indefinite relative pronouns. Still, it’s worth being aware of their existence, so we’ll give a quick rundown on the main ones here.

There are four main French indefinite relative pronouns, ce que, ce qui, ce dont, ce quoi, and a fifth one which is less common, quiconque. All of them can usually be translated by that, what, or which in English, depending on the context, while quiconque can sometimes be translated as whoever or whomever.

In order to figure out which one to use, you thus need to understand their grammatical structure. For now, let’s just go with a short explanation and a few examples of the four major indefinite relative pronouns.

Ce qui is used in place of the subject of a relative clause and takes the third-person singular form:

• C’est ce qui me dérange le plus avec lui! – That’s what bothers me the most with him!

• C’est ce qui lui plaît chez elle. – This is what he likes about her.

Ce que, and the contracted form ce qu’, is used as the direct object in a relative clause:

• Je sais ce que je veux. – I know what I want.

• Tout ce que vous avez entendu à son sujet est correct. – Everything [that] you’ve heard about him is correct.

Ce dont is used as an object of the preposition de:

• Ce dont j’ai envie, c’est d’un bon massage. – What I’d like is a good massage.

• C’est tout ce dont ils se souviennent. – That’s all they remember.

Ce… quoi is used as an object of other prepositions:

• Je ne sais pas ce à quoi m’attendre demain. – I don’t know what to expect for tomorrow.

• C’est ce avec quoi ça s’assortit le mieux. – That’s what it goes best with.

Conclusion

French relative pronouns are one of the key features of the French language that will make you sound fluent. Understanding when to use qui, que, où, dont, and lequel surely forces you to dive into grammar, which may sound scary and confusing at first. Furthermore, you won’t be able to rely on the English translation, which often differs, making it more challenging.

But practice makes perfect! We recommend you first focus on qui and que, the two most common pronoms relatifs, and when you’re comfortable with these two, the rest will follow!