French · Chapter 12 · Lesson 16 · Grammar primer
Relative pronouns: qui, que, dont, ou
qui = subject relative, que = object relative, dont covers de-relations, ou covers place and time. Plus ce qui / ce que for nominal relatives.
The short version
Qui or que is decided by what follows
The split is grammatical, not people against things: both can refer to either. If a verb follows directly, use qui. If a subject follows, use que, as in le livre que je lis, where je is the subject. And unlike English, French can never drop the relative: le livre je lis is broken.
Le livre que je lis est facile.
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article · 5 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
26-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
French · Free printables
Worksheets for this lesson
Worksheets with answer keys built in. Open any one to view, print or save.
Free for members
The printable worksheets, infographics and PDFs are free with an account. Start a free week and download as many as you like.
Start your free weekLesson 16 of 22 in this chapter