Relative Pronouns: qui, que, où, dont
संबंधवाचक सर्वनाम: qui, que, où, dont
English relative pronouns split mainly by whether the antecedent is a person or a thing. French ignores that distinction entirely and instead splits by grammatical role — subject, object, place, or object-of-de — needing four different words. Hindi makes neither split: one word, जो, covers every one of these roles, with only the case-marking on the resumptive वह changing to signal which role जो is playing.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
qui = subject ≈ जो (unmarked)
L'homme qui parle est mon professeur.
जो आदमी बोल रहा है, वह मेरा शिक्षक है।
Use qui when the person or thing being described is doing the action of the relative clause. Hindi's जो does this same subject-role job, unmarked — जो आदमी बोल रहा है ('who is speaking'). Where French needs a totally different word, que, the moment the noun switches to being an object instead of a subject, Hindi keeps जो exactly the same in both roles and only changes the case-marking on the resumptive वह later in the sentence — so a Hindi speaker's real task is learning to swap वह for वह को/जिसे, not learning four new relative pronouns the way French demands.
que = object ≈ जो + resumptive जिसे/उसे
Le livre que je lis est intéressant.
जो किताब मैं पढ़ रहा हूँ, वह दिलचस्प है।
Use que when the described noun is the object being acted on inside the clause. Hindi's जो stays identical here too — जो किताब मैं पढ़ रहा हूँ — the object role is signaled by word order and case-marking elsewhere in the sentence, not by swapping जो for a different word. While French forces you to actively choose between qui and que based on grammatical role, Hindi's जो never asks you to make that choice at all; only the resumptive pronoun shifts to carry the role information.
où = place or time ≈ जहाँ / जब — Hindi splits what French merges
La ville où j'habite est belle. / Le jour où je suis né...
जिस शहर में मैं रहता हूँ, वह ख़ूबसूरत है। / जिस दिन मैं पैदा हुआ...
où covers both physical place ('where') and time ('when') inside a relative clause — le jour où, l'année où all use où rather than quand. Hindi keeps these two senses separate, using जहाँ for place and जिस दिन/जब for time — so where French merges 'where' and 'when' into one word inside a relative clause, Hindi (like English) keeps them apart. This is one spot where French's own merging is the surprising, new thing to learn, not a gap Hindi already covers for you.
dont replaces de + noun — Hindi's जिसका already does both jobs dont does
C'est le livre dont je parle. / la femme dont le fils est médecin
यह वह किताब है जिसके बारे में मैं बात कर रहा हूँ। / वह औरत जिसका बेटा डॉक्टर है
dont is the pronoun French uses whenever the underlying verb or noun phrase needs de: parler de (dont je parle) and possession (la femme dont le fils est médecin, literally 'the woman of-whom the son is a doctor'). Hindi's जिसका/जिसकी/जिसके already handles the possession case directly — जिसका बेटा डॉक्टर है, 'whose son is a doctor' — and extends the same जिसके बारे में ('about whom/which') pattern to the parler-de case. A Hindi speaker already owns a possession-marking relative word with a genitive shape similar in spirit to dont; the main new habit is remembering that French's dont must move to the front of the clause rather than staying stranded at the end the way English 'about' does.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
- Hindi
- जोjo
- English
- who / that / which (subject)
- Hindi
- जोjo
- English
- that / which / whom (object)
- Hindi
- जहाँ / जिस समयjahāñ/jis samay
- English
- where / when
- Hindi
- जिसके बारे में / जिसकाjiske bāre meñ/jiskā
- English
- of which / whose / about which
- Hindi
- जोjo
- English
- what (subject of clause)
- Hindi
- जोjo
- English
- what (object of clause)
- Hindi
- जिस चीज़ के बारे मेंjis cīz ke bāre meñ
- English
- what (with a de-verb)
- Hindi
- कौन-साkaun-sā
- English
- which one (after a preposition)