Joining Spanish Descriptions with Que and Donde

In this lesson, you will join two simple ideas by using to add information about a known person or thing and to add information about a known place.

Que adds information about a person

Start with two ideas:

— I know a woman. The woman works at the hotel.

Join them:

— I know a woman who works at the hotel.

Una mujer is the antecedent: the noun that the relative clause describes.

Que adds information about a thing

Two ideas:

— I have a book. The book explains the history.

Joined:

— I have a book that explains the history.

Que can represent the object inside the relative clause

Two ideas:

— I bought a book. I need the book for class.

Joined:

— The book that I bought is for the class.

Do not repeat the object pronoun unnecessarily

Target pattern:

— The book that I bought is new.

Do not copy an English-influenced pattern by adding lo after in this simple relative clause.

Spanish keeps que where English may omit “that”

English can say “the book I bought.” In the target Spanish pattern, keep .

— The book that I bought.
— The movie that we saw.
— The food that Ana prepared.

Donde adds information about a place

Two ideas:

— This is the café. We ate in this café.

Joined:

— This is the café where we ate.

More place examples

— The city where I live is small.
— The hotel where I worked is near the station.
— The room where we have the meeting is on the third floor.

Identify the antecedent first

In — The room where we have the meeting is on the third floor, — the room is the place described by — where we have the meeting.

Que versus donde

Antecedent	Connector	Example
person or thing		— The woman who works here.
place		— The café where we ate.

Use these patterns with known, real referents

This lesson describes people, things, and places that the speaker treats as known or existing.

— The teacher who works here is Carlos.
— The room where we slept was small.

Choosing a special relative form after a preposition or choosing a subjunctive relative clause for an unknown or nonexistent referent is reserved for later study.

Combine information without making the sentence too long

Clear:

— The hotel where we slept was near downtown.

Clear:

— The restaurant that Ana chose was cheap.

At this level, use one clear relative clause rather than stacking several new descriptions into one sentence.

Short description task

Join:

— I know a restaurant. The restaurant has very good food.

Result

— I know a restaurant that has very good food.

Join:

— This is the park. We used to play in this park.

Result

— This is the park where we used to play.

A practical relative-clause method

Identify the noun being described.
Use when that noun is a person or thing in the target pattern.
Use when that noun is a place.
Do not repeat the direct object inside the relative clause when already fills that role.
Keep even when natural English could omit “that.”
Use familiar indicative descriptions of known referents in this lesson.
Leave preposition-led relatives and subjunctive relative clauses for later.

From Relative Clauses to a Graded Story

You can now join descriptions of known people, things, and places with and . The next lesson asks you to use these structures while following the characters, events, problem, and outcome of a complete graded story.