Relative pronouns (qui / que / dont / où)
Summary
Relative pronouns join two clauses: qui is the subject, que the direct object, dont replaces "de + noun", and où marks place or time.
Explanation
A relative pronoun introduces a clause that adds information about a preceding noun (the antecedent). French chooses the pronoun by the role that noun plays inside the relative clause, not by whether it is a person or a thing — this is the key difference from English who / which / that.
qui is the subject of the relative clause and is followed directly by a verb: l'homme qui parle (the man who is speaking), le train qui arrive. que (qu' before a vowel) is the direct object and is followed by a new subject + verb: le livre que je lis (the book that I'm reading), le film qu'il aime.
dont replaces a complement introduced by de. Use it with verbs and adjectives built on de (parler de, avoir besoin de, être fier de): le film dont je parle (the film I'm talking about), and to express "whose": la fille dont le père est médecin (the girl whose father is a doctor). où covers place and, less obviously to learners, time: la ville où j'habite, le jour où je suis arrivé.
Several traps recur. First, qui vs que depends on grammatical function, not meaning: in le livre que je lis, je is the subject, so the object form que is needed even though English may use "that" or nothing. Second, que elides to qu' before a vowel (qu'il aime) but qui never elides (qui aime, never qu'aime). Third, French cannot drop the relative pronoun the way English drops "that": the book I read must be le livre que j'ai lu.
dont is the form English speakers most often miss, because English uses "whose", "of which", or just "that". Whenever the underlying verb or expression takes de, reach for dont: avoir besoin de → la chose dont j'ai besoin; parler de → le sujet dont nous parlons. After dont, the word order is dont + subject + verb, with no extra de.
Rule of thumb: ask what the antecedent does in the relative clause. Subject → qui; direct object → que; tied to a verb/expression with de or meaning "whose" → dont; a place or a moment in time → où.
Examples
C'est le voisin qui m'a aidé hier. — That's the neighbour who helped me yesterday. (qui is the subject of a aidé.)
Voici le livre que je lis en ce moment. — Here is the book (that) I'm reading right now. (que is the direct object; je is the subject.)
Voici le livre dont je t'ai parlé. — Here is the book (that) I told you about. (dont replaces de in parler de quelque chose.)
La fille dont le père est médecin habite ici. — The girl whose father is a doctor lives here. (dont expresses "whose".)
Le jour où je suis arrivé, il pleuvait. — The day (when) I arrived, it was raining. (où marks time, not only place.)
Common mistakes
Le livre qui je lis est passionnant.
Le livre que je lis est passionnant.
The choice between qui and que has nothing to do with people vs things (unlike English who/which). It depends on the grammatical role inside the relative clause: qui is the subject (followed by a verb), que is the direct object (followed by a subject + verb). Here je is the subject, so the object pronoun que is required; que elides to qu' before a vowel, but qui never does.
Prerequisites
Related rules
pronounsrelative-clausessyntax