The four main French relative pronouns qui, que, où, dont are essential to connecting sentences. Whether you are brand new to this or if you just need a review, my video lessons are the best place to start (scroll down for videos). You can download a PDF of this lesson guide in my private French Grammar Library.
QUI
This pronoun is used to refer to people and means “who” or “whom”.
Example: “La personne qui parle est mon ami” (The person who is speaking is my friend).
QUE
This pronoun is used to refer to things and means “that” or “which”.
Example: “Le livre que je lis est intéressant” (The book that I am reading is interesting).
OÙ
This pronoun means “where” and is used to refer to a place.
Example: “Le parc où je vais est grand” (The park where I am going is big).
DONT
This pronoun is used to refer to possession and means “whose” or “of which”.
Example: “Le chat dont je parle est très joli” (The cat I am speaking about is very cute).
I used to teach the French relative pronouns qui que où dont at the same time. I would introduce them all at once and just wait for my students to tell me how confused they were. It really wasn’t fun at all.
The main frustration point was easy to identify. The problem was knowing when to use dont. It became my mission to find a solution to this problem, and I found it!!
I now teach dont all by itself before even mentioning the other pronouns. Problem solved. Most of my students these days tell me that dont is actually easier than the other ones.
“This tutorial went above and beyond what is presently available on Youtube. I love the attention to detail and the helpful discussions between the differences in French and English.”
“I had a lesson for one hour trying to understand que, qui and où. But this video took only 13 minutes for me to understand even dont which I always avoided using because I just could not get it.”
French Relative Pronouns Qui Que Où Dont Practice Cards
