WHO | WHOM | WHOSE | WHO'S - Important English Grammar Lesson!

- Hello, lovely students.

And welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today, I've got a really important grammar video for you.

We're going to talk about who, whom, who's and whose.

Which one do we use and when?

This is a topic that confuses even native English speakers.

We are going to cover all of the usages today.

And to go along with this lesson, I have created a free PDF.

It contains everything we're going to talk about today,

plus a quiz, so you can put what you learned today

into practise.

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just click on the link in the description box,

enter your name and your email address.

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Let's get started with the lesson.

As I said, if you can master this,

you'll be ahead of many native speakers.

I'm pretty sure if you walked up to a native speaker

in the street, and I don't recommend you do this,

and you ask them the differences between these words,

a lot of them would be quite confused.

So let's do this.

We'll start with who and whom.

This confuses so many people, but once you know the rules,

they're quite easy to use.

And pleasantly, the rule is actually quite simple,

unlike many English rules.

The difference between who and whom

is the same as the difference between I and me,

he and him, she and her, and they and them.

Who is a subject pronoun like I,

whom is an object pronoun like me.

This all sounds very grammatical,

so let's take a look at some examples

to clear up any doubts.

We have "who".

It's a subject pronoun.

It refers to the person

who is doing the action, the subject.

Who is coming to the party? Who lives here?

If you want to check, if you're using who correctly

in these sorts of sentences, try answering the question

with another subject pronoun.

Who is coming to the party?

She is coming to the party.

You wouldn't say, her is coming to the party.

Who lives here?

They live here.

You wouldn't say, them live here.

That's a good quick fix to check,

if you're using this in the right way.

We also use who in indirect questions

along with the direct questions that we saw just now,

do you know who is coming with us?

Could you tell me who that woman is?

And we use who in relative clauses.

These are clauses that tell us more

about a person or a thing.

My sister, who lives in New York, is a doctor.

In relative clauses, we use relative pronouns

to refer to the person or the thing.

And in relative clauses, who is the relative pronoun,

who is a relative pronoun that we use to refer

to the subject of the clause.

To check if you're using this relative clause correctly,

you can remove it and see if the sentence still makes sense.

My sister is a doctor.

It makes sense.

You can also isolate the who clause

and insert she,

she lives in New York.

Another example,

she's the teacher who told me I would fail maths!

We can replace who with she, and isolate it.

She told me I would fail maths!

It still works. We're using it correctly.

And finally, who is used in reported speech.

She told me who was coming.

They asked, who was arriving first.

There is so much more to say about reported speech.

So if you feel you need to brush up

on your reported speech skills and understanding,

then I have another video dedicated to the topic.

I've left a link in the description box.

Now, let's move on to the topic of "whom".

This is the word that really gets people confused.

As we said, it's an object pronoun.

It receives the action of the sentence.

Let's take a look at a sentence with an object pronoun.

She went to the park with him.

Him, there, is the object pronoun.

Now, if you wanted to know who her companion was,

you could say, whom,

whom did she go to the park with?

Another example, whom would you prefer to have as manager?

How can you check if this is correct?

Well, by answering the question with another object pronoun.

I would prefer to have her as a manager.

Whom? Her.

You can't say I'd prefer to have she as a manager, it's her.

So we use whom.

Now, in real life conversations,

native English speakers tend to neglect who,

and that's okay.

It's seen as very old fashioned,

as very formal, and to be quite honest,

most native speakers don't understand it.

In fact, before I started teaching English

and learning how to use grammar,

I personally didn't understand it myself.

You'd be much more likely to hear,

who would you rather have as a manager?

Don't stress yourself out about the word "whom".

Use it if you like the sound of it.

If you like to sound formal and a little bit old fashioned,

lots of people do like that,

but it's perfectly fine to not use it.

I always think that it's really nice

to understand these things,

and then you have a choice about whether you use it or not.

Another thing about whom is that we should always use it

with a preposition, for example,

whom did you give that present to

or to whom did you give that present?

Well, that does sound very posh.

Whom are you cooking dinner for?

Or for whom are you cooking dinner?

The second version of those questions

with the preposition at the beginning

is technically more grammatically correct,

but you are not going to hear many native English speakers

using this.

Most wouldn't ask a question like this

in normal conversation.

You might hear it in an old fashioned drama

like Bridgerton or Downton Abbey,

but it's not how we speak in modern daily life.

We would simply say, who did you give that present to?

Who are you cooking dinner for?

We can also use whom in relative clauses

when we are referring to the object of the clause.

Julio, whom we met on the plane, is Spanish.

Whom is the object of met,

we met Julio, or we met him.

If the relative clause includes a preposition,

we use whom.

Tanya is the woman from whom I received a letter.

Oh my Lord,

that sounds like an incredibly formal sentence to me.

I know so many of you want to learn

to use the word, whom, I've been asked about it

a hell of a lot.

It's not a useless word.

It's good to understand it in films.

It's nice to use it if you want to sound formal,

and if you want to sound a bit posh.

It's a good word to use correctly in written English,

you could really impress an examiner.

Let's take a look at a few more examples

of who and whom together before we move on to

who's and whose.

Who made this delicious cake?

He made this delicious cake.

Whom are you going to Greece with?

Or with whom are you going to Greece?

I'm going to Greece with him, object pronoun.

She has a daughter who is a pilot.

Her daughter, to whom she is very close, is a pilot.

Remember, if you want to see more examples

and practise on your own and take exercise questions,

download that PDF.

The link is in the description box.

Okay. Let's move on to the good part.

We have a really quick fix here.

"Who's" as in apostrophe S,

and "whose" as in "se".

Both of these words are versions of the word, who.

Who's with an apostrophe S is a contraction.

It's a contraction of the words who is or who has.

Whose with an "se" is a possessive pronoun

like his or mine, whose.

Listen to the pronunciation of these two words,

who's, whose.

Who's, whose, do you notice the difference?

Because there shouldn't be one.

They are pronounced in exactly the same way.

It's just the spelling that's different.

These words are homophones.

They're spelled differently,

but they have the same pronunciation.

Let's take a closer look at who's with apostrophe S,

as I said, it's a contraction of who is, who's,

or who has, who's.

You should be able to tell from the context of a sentence

whether that apostrophe S is,

is or has.

Who's that man sitting over there?

Who is that man sitting over there?

Who's been to Paris before?

Who has been to Paris before?

We use who's a lot in questions.

We can also use it in normal sentences,

like these,

that's the lecturer who's giving a talk later on.

Who is giving a talk later on.

She's the person who's been sending me all of those letters!

Who has been sending me all of those letters!

And finally, whose with "se",

we most often use this in sentences

when we are asking to whom something belongs,

bonus example of whom there.

Whose dog is that? Whose cupcakes are these?

You can answer both of these questions

with the possessive pronoun, my.

That is my dog. Those are my cupcakes.

And there you have it.

Who, whom, who's and whose.

You should now understand how to use them correctly.

Some of that information, especially the part about whom

is actually quite complex.

So we have created that lesson PDF.

It's got everything in there in writing.

You can take it at your own pace,

and you can take the quiz at the end of it to check

that you've fully understand what we've spoken about today.

If you'd like to download that free PDF and quiz,

click on the link in the description box,

enter your name and your email address,

and you sign up my mailing list.

The PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.

That's it today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it.

And I hope you learned something.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

I've got my Instagram, EnglishwithLucy my English Instagram,

and @Lucy, my personal Instagram.

I've also got my website englishwithlucy.co.uk,

where I've got a fantastic pronunciation tool.

It's a phonemic chart, and you can click on the phonemes,

hear me pronounce those phonemes

and words that contain those phonemes.

I've also got my logging channel, Lucy Bella,

where you can follow our lives here

in the English countryside.

And importantly, every single vlog is fully subtitled,

so that you can use them for listening practise

and expanding your vocabulary.

You can also check out my English courses,

that's englishwithlucy.co.uk/courses.

There are lots there to choose from.

I will see you soon for another lesson,

but don't feel pressured to use it because seriously,

we just don't.

Delete that.

I can't believe I managed to turn whom

into a motivational speech.

You have a choice. Julio, Julio, Julio.

If the relative clause includes.

Are versions of the word who, what about whom?

What about who's?

You can answer both of these questions

with the possessive, oh.

English country-sided, country-sided.

Think of my challenge.

Right. Okay. 27 minutes. Not too bad.

(gentle lively music)