El cual which

What color would you like? Which one of those countries did you like most? Topics Grammar. Signup to get Free Spanish Lessons sent by email Sign up. Bookmark Bookmarked. Guillermina y Candelario - El parque de diversiones Part 1. Esa es la mesa en la cual como. Me estoy acercando a un coche. Hay alguien dentro del coche. Hay alguien dentro del coche al cual me estoy acercando. Las chicas no han llegado. Mi hermano trabaja con ellas. My brother works with them.

Las chicas con las cuales mi hermano trabaja no han llegado. Aside from being somewhat more formal than el que , el cual is usually used in the following cases: 1. When the relative pronoun is separated from its antecedent, either by other words or by some sort of grammatical pause such as a colon or period : Hay un perro en mi barrio, el cual ladra toda la noche.

When the relative pronoun directly follows the antecedent, you should use que. The books that we read had disappeared. The books, about which we were talking, had disappeared. Once again, using a form of el que or el cual rather than que following the certain prepositions helps us avoid accidentally creating conjunctions.

Also, if a sentence has more than one possible antecedent and they happen to be different genders , using a form of el que or el cual can help clear up any confusion.

The first section of the test, which is very difficult, is grammar. In this sentence it's not apparent whether the entire test is difficult or just the first section. While we can't do anything in English to make it clear, we can in Spanish.

Notice how each relative pronoun indicates a different antecedent. Many proverbs and other practical sayings like those found in Chinese fortune cookies will start with "He who" or "Those who.

El que madruga coge agua clara. The one who wakes early collects clean water. The early bird gets the worm. El que a hierro mata, a hierro muere The one who kills by iron, dies by iron. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. He who hesitates is lost. In order to use a form of el que or el cual we need to know the gender and number of the antecedent.

Sometimes this is impossible, however, because the antecedent is unknown or it is an abstract concept which doesn't have gender or number.

In these cases we would use the neuter forms lo que and lo cual. I don't want to tell you what I heard this morning. Note: When translating, if you need to say "what" and you're not asking a question, you should probably use lo que.

In this example the antecedent has not been established was it a joke, a story, people yelling? Therefore we use the neuter lo que. The price of oil rose rapidly which caused economic problems. In this sentence the antecedent isn't the price or the oil, but rather the idea that oil prices rose quickly. El que and el cual and their related forms are not very common in speech, but are much more so in written Spanish. They each have four forms that match the antecedent in number and gender.

El que and its related forms la que , los que , las que must agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. El que is generally used when there is more distance between the antecedent and the relative pronoun, such as a comma or a one-word preposition.

It can be used with the prepositions sin, por , and para instead of just plain que to help avoid confusion with sin que, porque , and para que.

El cual and its related forms la cual , los cuales , las cuales also must match the antecedent they refer to in number and gender. They're used when there is more distance between the antecedent and the relative pronoun, such as when a compound preposition is used. Learn Spanish. Sign in. Que and Quien. Donde, Cuyo, Lo que, Lo Cual. Comprehensive Review 1.