Which or That? Relative Clauses for Beginners - Basic English Grammar

hi everybody my name is Alisha today I'm

going to talk about the difference between witch and that witch and that

are both relative pronouns but a lot of people confuse the two so let's talk

about how to use them okay first a quick overview which first we use witch in

what are called non restrictive relative clauses we use that on the other hand in

restrictive relative clauses so before we continue let's talk about the

difference between non restrictive clauses and restrictive clauses the

difference here a non-restrictive clause first of all where we use which is a

clause that does not have information essential to understanding the noun it

is connected to I'll show you some examples in just a minute

a restrictive clause however is a clause that has information essential to our

understanding of that noun so we need the information in the restrictive

Clause to completely understand the noun or the noun phrase it is attached to a

non-restrictive clause is sort of extra information we don't need the

information to understand the noun or the noun phrase it just provides some

more information so let's take a look at a few examples of this the first example

I have is rather extreme but it's just to show the differences between these

two first the school that I parked my car next to is dangerous so here my noun

is school here I've got the relative pronoun that I have the school that I

parked my car next to is dangerous I've used that here because my Clause is a

restrictive clause I need this information the school that I parked my

car next to is dangerous if I remove this the school is dangerous the

sentence is correct however the meaning changes the key here is that I parked my

car there so I want to explain that specifically the school that I parked my

car next to this school in particular is dangerous

so that shows us that it's a restrictive clause we have to use that in this

sentence because the information is essential to our understanding in this

sentence however the school which has a tennis court is dangerous I've used

which so which is a non-restrictive is used in non restrictive clauses this

shows us it is extra information the school has a tennis court do I need

to know this information no it's just extra information if I remove this

clause the school is dangerous the root sentence the basic sentence stays the

same this is just extra information it doesn't necessarily tell us essential

information about the situation so we use which to show that it's a non

restrictive relative clause as I said this is a rather extreme example so

let's take a look at something that's a little bit more complex okay let's look

at the next two sentences first the car which I bought last year is already

having trouble and the car that I bought last year is already having trouble

these are very similar sounding sentences

however our choice of which or that as well as the commas which I'll talk about

later have changed the meaning so there are a couple key differences here one by

seeing that in the first sentence that we're using a non restrictive clause

here with which we see the car which I bought last year this shows us that this

is extra information about the car here however we see that this is essential

information the car that I bought last year is already having trouble so the

speaker could be saying here with this sentence the second sentence the car

that I bought last year specifically a car that the speaker purchased the

previous year this sentence means therefore the speaker might have other

cars the speaker is specifically meaning this specific car that they he or she

bought last year in this sentence with the non restrictive clause we don't have

the same nuance the car which I bought last year is just ex

information in this sentence so here the car that I bought last year this is

indicating a specific car this one with the non restrictive clause it's just

giving us extra information so the speaker may or may not have another car

we don't know so that's all I want to say about that okay but a question that

many people have is how do you know whether it's a restrictive or a

non-restrictive clause so this is a quick tip a quick hint for native

speakers and non-native speakers actually it's a restrictive non

restrictive how do I know to do that remove the clause just take the clause

out of the sentence is the meaning of the sentence the same is the sentence

still grammatically correct is it okay if yes if the sentence is okay the

meaning is the same it's a non-restrictive clause if no if

the meaning changes if you lose some key information it is a restrictive clause

so this is a quick hint if you're not sure whether she use which or whether to

use that try this test as quick test just take it out and see if the meaning

changes the last thing I want to talk about here is the use of commas so

you'll notice I used commas throughout this lesson and also when I was reading

they kind of create a natural pause around this extra information but when

do you use them we should use commas around non-restrictive clauses so you

can see I used them here and here in the example sentences we use commas around

non-restrictive clauses only again this lesson , which is being recorded comma

is about which and that so when you're reading it creates a natural pause so

the reader knows there's going to be like extra information there the reader

can understand through use of these commas however do not use commas around

restrictive clauses for example the lesson that I just taught was about how

to use which and that this is a restrictive clause so I mean

specifically this lesson that I just taught was about how to use which and

that I should not include commas here because I'm not including any extra

information all of the information is it's the same with all of the other

example sentences I used in this lesson there are no commas included because all

of the information is essential the reader needs to understand everything in

one piece you can think of it that way okay so that's an overview of the

differences between which and that restrictive clauses as well and a couple

of comma tips too so I hope that this was a useful lesson for you if you have

any questions of course please feel free to let us know in the comments if you

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