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Ask for help > Relative pronoun explanation
Relative pronoun explanation
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chenchen_castrourdiales
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Relative pronoun explanation
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Hello there again,
First of all I must thank all those members who spend their time giving an answer to the questions posted on this web site. You can imagine how useful it is your help!
Yesterday I gave my students a worksheet about relative clauses. They had to join two simple sentences using the appropriate relative pronoun. These were the given sentences: We stayed at the Grand Hotel. Anna recommended it to us. I told them that the only possible answer is [We stayed at the Grand Hotel, which Anna recommmended to us.] However, one of them gave me this answer [ We stayed at the Grand Hotel where Anna recommended to us.] I always tell them not to translate Spanish into English because if you do so in this sentence it sound well in Spanish but not in English. With other sentences in which they also translate I tell them that "where" cannot be the subject of a relative clause but the object. But this is the point in this sentence so I just could tell him that the verb "recommend" answers "something" not a "place". Anyway, I told him that I would check my grammar books to provide him with a better or clearer explanation. Do you know any other possible answer to justify the use of "where" as wrong to join the given sentences? Thanks a million!!!! |
5 Jun 2010
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valentinaper
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I feel that a good way to explain this (however not an entirely grammatical one) is to try and get them to think that the sentence "which Anna recommended to us" refers to the Hotel as an idea, as an item rather than a place, ie the building. It is the choice that we refer to, not the specific place. Getting them to think pragmatically will help them semantically! Hope I didn �t confuse you! |
5 Jun 2010
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lizsantiago
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when i have this kind of problem i remind my students that grammar has a set of rules that we have to follow and that in this case if we are talking about relative pronouns, they are used to join clauses and to refer to a previous noun mention before, so there are only seven posibilities and that they have to chose among them. who whom which that whoever whomever whichever. in the first sentence the only noun is grand hotel. so we have to look among the only pronouns we have to choose from , in other words...which one can replace grand hotel and that where is not a possibility, by explaining how and where do we use the other six they will get that the only choice is which since who and whom are use to replace people and the other choice, that, although is used to name ideas or places, is only used when the clause is important to complete the meaning of the main clause and which is used when the information in that clause is not and can be removed.
i hope you got the idea..
| Who, Whom, That, Which |
| whoever, whomever, whichever | |
5 Jun 2010
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Apodo
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We ask: Which hotel did Anna recommend? not Where hotel did Anna recommend?
so it would be �the Hotel which Anna recommended. �
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5 Jun 2010
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yanogator
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In addition to these excellent answers, another way of explaining it is that "which" is in essence replacing "it" in the original sentence. Since "it" is a thing, it can �t be replaced by "where".
Bruce |
5 Jun 2010
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L. habach
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To help my students understand the difference b/w which and where, I use these two sentences.
This is the house where my uncle lives / This is the house which my uncle bought a year ago.
where: the event takes place inside the place whereas which: the event doesn �t take place inside. |
5 Jun 2010
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