WHO vs. WHOM - What's the Difference? - English Grammar - When to Use Who or Whom

Hey there and welcome back to Learn English Lab. My name is Ganesh and this

lesson is all about the difference between who and whom. This is something

that a lot of students find confusing - when to use who and when to use whom. In

this lesson, I'll show you how to use these correctly. Before we begin,

just remember that if you have any questions at all, just let me know in the

comments section below and I will talk to you there.

OK so let's start. Now who and whom are used in two places - they're used in

questions and they're used in relative clauses.

First we'll talk about questions and then we will come to relative

clauses. If you're not sure what that means, don't worry - I will explain it to

you when we get to that part. Now here's the rule with using who and whom - who is

used in the place of a subject and whom is used in the place of an object.

What do I mean by that? Well take a look at this sentence "Bruce spoke to Betsy." In

this sentence we say that Bruce is the subject because Bruce does the action

which is speak

past tense - spoke. And Betsy is the object because Betsy receives the action. Now

some people might argue - is Betsy really the object because there's a 'to' which is a

preposition here but you don't have to worry about that. For the purpose of this

sentence we'll say that Bruce is the subject and Betsy is the object. Take a

look at these two questions over here - there's a blank there - "______ spoke to Betsy?"

Here we want to fill in this blank with either who or whom - which is correct?

Well if you read the sentence you realize that we know someone spoke to

Betsy but we don't know who that someone was. That is we're asking about the

subject so the word for the subject is who

so

"Who spoke to Betsy?" Now in the second sentence - of course you must be thinking we

have to use whom here right? You probably guessed that and that is correct but

before we get to that I'm just going to write 'who' over here - now read the

sentence "Who did Bruce speak to?" This is actually correct in speaking and in fact

when we speak we don't commonly use 'whom.' In speech we almost always use 'who'

So this means if you are not sure whether to use who or whom just use who

and you will be OK. Alright but I'm going to take the 'who' off. So what about if you

want to write something formal or if you want to use proper grammatical form?

Well in that case you need to know how to use whom correctly and in this

question - if you read it "_____ did Bruce speak to?" Here, we know that Bruce spoke to

someone but we want to ask who that someone was - that is we want to ask about

the object of the sentence. Remember Betsy? So because we want to ask about

the object we have to use whom over here. Before I write whom just notice that

there's a 'to' at the end of this question - now in English we have a rule

that we don't usually end a question with a preposition like to. These are all

prepositions - to, with, by, from, for etc. So if you have a

a preposition at the end of a question you have to bring that to

the beginning before you write whom.

So let's do that - I'm going to put a question mark there

"To whom did Bruce speak?" That is actually the proper grammatical form of that

question. So if you're writing something formal, this is how you should write it.

OK at this point I'm going to give you a very simple rule that you can use in

all situations to decide whether to use who or whom, and the rule is this - when

you're making a question, think about the answer to that question. If the answer

can be him, her or them, then you use whom.

OK so if the answer can be him, her or them, you use 'whom.' So to this question

"To whom did Bruce speak?", we can say Bruce spoke to him, Bruce spoke to her

Bruce spoke to them. OK so if there's an 'm' in the answer then you put 'm' in

the question- this is a my 'm-whom' rule. But let's go back to this first sentence

Here you cannot answer with him, her or them - if someone asks "Who spoke to Betsy?"

you cannot say him spoke to Betsy, her spoke to Betsy, them spoke to Betsy - that

doesn't sound right. But here, you can say "He spoke to Betsy" or "She spoke Betsy" so

If the answer can be he, she or they, that is, there's no 'm' in the answer

there's no 'm' in the question. Alright, with this rule in mind, let's now do the

next couple of questions and this time i want you to give me the correct question

word. Question number three is - "_____ broke the window?" Who or whom? Well, think about

the answer. Can you say "He broke the window" or "Him broke the window? "Him broke

the window" doesn't sound right

"He broke the window" is correct, so no 'm' - no whom

so "Who broke the window?" is correct. Question number four

"_____ do you want to see?" OK the answer would be

"I want to see" and then would you say he or him?

"I want to see he" or "I want to see him"?

"I want to see him" is correct, so there's an 'm' in the answer. So we're going to put

an 'm' in the question. "Who do you want to see?" is the correct question. If you got

these right, then you can put the correct question word - who or whom - in any

situation without a problem.

Alright, so let's now take a quick look at some relative clauses. Relative

clauses simply means that two or more sentences have been combined together.

And to combine them together, we use who and whom. Take a look at this first

sentence - "Richard is visiting his parents _____ live in indiana." And here we would put

who or whom.

Well, first of all let's split this big sentence into the two smaller sentences

or clauses.

The first is "Richard is visiting his parents." And the second is 'His parents

live in indiana." And we want to focus on the second sentence, so instead of "his

parents", can you say they or them?

Can you say "They live in Indiana" or "Them live in Indiana"? "Them live in Indiana" is

wrong. "They live in Indiana" is correct so no 'm' - no whom. Simple. So, "Richard is

visiting his parents who live in Indiana."

Just remember that this is not a question - this who just refers to his

parents.

OK, in the second sentence, "Her friend _____ is a guitarist, taught her to

play the instrument." What are the two sentences here? The first sentence - "Her friend is a

guitarist" and the second sentence - "Her friend taught her to play the instrument."

Here, we are interested in the first sentence - so in this gap, can you say "He

is a guitarist" or "Him is a guiatrist?" "He is a guitarist" is correct so

once again - who. "Her friend, who is a guitarist, taught her to play the

instrument."

This next one is a little tricky.

"Daphne, _____ you met last week, is my fiancée." Can you split this into the two

smaller clauses?

Well the first clause actually does not start with Daphne. The first clause

starts here. "You met Daphne last week." And the second clause is "Daphne is my fiancée."

Fiancée means i'm going to marry Daphne. Not really - it's just for the purpose of

the sentence, of course. And here, we are interested in the first clause - "You met

Daphne" - Daphne is hidden over here - "last week." Here, can you say "You met she last

week" or "You met her last week"?

"You met her last week" is correct and if you remember, 'her' is like 'him' and 'them' so

we can have an 'm' in the answer. That means we can have an 'm' in the question word. So

"Daphne, whom you met last week, is my fiancée." And in the last example "The man

_____ Cody works for is a billionaire"

Can you now split this into the two smaller clauses? The first clause starts here -

"Cody works for a man." The second clause is "The man is a billionaire." Again, we're

interested in this clause - the first clause. So, "Cody works for a man" - can you

say "Cody works for he" or "Cody works for

him"? "Cody works for him" is correct so because we have an 'm' we need a 'whom'

"The man whom Cody works for is a billionaire." now let me remind you once again if you

are not sure whether to use who or whom, just use who and you will be fine. Of

course if you use whom correctly then your language will sound more formal and

more grammatically correct and that's important especially in writing

Alright, now i'm going to give you a test to see if you can use who and whom

correctly.

OK on the screen there are six sentences with gaps in them and your job is to

fill in the gap in each sentence with who or whom. Take a moment and pause this

video now if you need. Think about your answers and then I will give you the

answers.

Alright, let's discuss the answers. Number one - we can answer this question with he,

she or they. We can say "He is going to win the election" or "She is going to win

the election" so the correct question word is 'who'

Number two - we have relative clauses and we are interested in the clause in the

middle.

Now if this clause was a separate sentence we can fill in the gap with

'they' - we can say "They were both high school teachers." 'They' means 'my parents.' So

the correct relative pronoun again is who. "My parents who were both high school

teachers wanted me to become a college professor."

In number three, there's a 'to' at the beginning of the sentence so that should

give you a clue.

Now think about the answer to this question - the answer might be "You should

speak to him" or "You should speak to them" about applying for a loan

There's an 'm' in the answer so we put an 'm' in the question word - "To whom should I

speak about applying for a loan?"

Number four - again, we have relative clauses and we are interested in the

clause at the end of the sentence - "If this clause was a separate sentence we can say "She

won two Nobel prizes." We cannot say "Her won two Nobel prizes."

OKso we have a subject pronoun in the place of the blank so we put 'who' - "Marie

Curie was a Polish scientist who won two Nobel prizes." Number five - "I'm trying to

get in touch with some of my childhood friends" and then you have 'with'. So

again as soon as you have the preposition, you know that it should be

whom.

But also think about the clause at the end. The clause of the end is "I have lost

contact with them."

OK so because we have 'them' when we change it into a relative clause we

write it as 'whom.'

Alright, and finally number six - this is actually a question but it's not in the

form of a question. And the answer to this question might be "I saw him

stealing from the cash register' or "her stealing from the cash register" so

because we can have an 'm' in the answer

'whom' is the correct relative pronoun or question word. "Tell me whom you saw

stealing from the cash register."

OK, how many of those did you get right? If you got all of them right,

fantastic job! If you didn't, just keep practicing and I'm sure that you will be

using who and whom correctly in no time. Before you go,

remember to subscribe to this channel. If you have any questions at all

again, let me know in the comments section - I will talk to you there.

Alright I'll see you in another lesson soon.