You just learned about relative clauses and pronouns. Now it gets tricky! Sometimes there is a preposition word joined to the object of a sentence.

He is the student.

The school gave an award to him.

To combine these two sentences properly, we should use the relative pronoun 'whom' like this:

He is the student to whom the school gave an award.

However, this sounds a bit weird and if you talked like this all the time you would sound quite old-fashioned! Instead, it is much more common to use a normal relative pronoun and add the preposition to the end of the sentence.

He is the student who the school gave an award to.

Only in formal conversations or in writing should you use the first way of combining sentences.

When we are not talking about people, the relative pronoun we use is 'which.'

This is the house.

My family is moving to this house next month.

Again, we can combine them using a relative pronoun. This time, because we are talking about a thing, not a person, we use 'which.'

This is the house to which we are moving next month.

Sounds pretty formal. Let's try it a different way.

This is the house that my family is moving to next month.

Here are some examples of sentences that are combined using relative clauses as objects with prepositions. You can tell this because the relative pronoun is always followed by a subject + verb and there is a preposition at the end of the clause.

Two Sentences

Formal

Informal

Casey is a friend.

 Casey is a friend with whom I went to school. Casey is a friend who I went to school with.
I went to school with him.
Put these forks near the table. Put these forks near the table on which the cake is sitting. Put these forks near the table that the cake is sitting on.
The cake is sitting on the table.
Virunga is a national park. Virunga is a national park in which almost 200 gorillas live. Virunga is a national park that almost 200 gorillas live in.
Almost 200 gorillas live in the park.
The tooth fairy is a mythical person. The tooth fairy is a mythical person in whom my baby sister believes. The tooth fairy is a mythical person who my baby sister believes in.
My baby sister believes in the tooth fairy.

Again, you might notice that some informal sentences leave out the relative pronoun. It sounds more natural that way.

Exercise

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Exercises

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