Relative pronoun: que

El hombre que vive aquí es mi vecino.The man who lives here is my neighbor.

Spanish has one small, extremely common word for linking a noun to a bit of extra information about it: que. Once you're comfortable with it, you can describe almost anything without starting a new sentence.

Quick shortcut: for a subject or a direct-object relative clause, que = "that/which/who" — the same word, for people and things, never changing form. A relative clause that needs a preposition (con quien hablo, la casa en que vivo) is its own topic.

One word for people and things

Unlike English, which splits this job between who (people), which (things) and that (either), Spanish uses que for all of them:

El hombre que vive aquí es mi vecino. (The man who lives here is my neighbor — a person.) El libro que estoy leyendo es interesante. (The book that I'm reading is interesting — a thing.) La chica que conozco vive en Madrid. (The girl who(m) I know lives in Madrid — a person, as an object.)

There's no need to choose a different word depending on whether que refers to a person or a thing — it's simply the same word every time.

que as the subject or the direct object of its clause

For a subject or a direct-object relative clause, que can play either role without changing form:

El profesor que enseña español es simpático. (The teacher who teaches Spanish is nice — here que is the subject of enseña.) El profesor que conocemos es simpático. (The teacher (that) we know is nice — here que is the direct object of conocemos.)

In English, the object version can drop that/who entirely ("the teacher we know"). Spanish never drops que — it's always there, whichever role it plays.

This only holds for the subject and direct-object roles. The moment a preposition is needed — with whom, in which, about what — bare que on its own isn't enough, and the sentence needs a different relative form (con quien, en el que, and similar) instead. That's its own topic; this article only covers subject and direct-object que.

que never changes form

Que stays exactly the same no matter the gender or number of what it refers back to:

El chico que llegó tarde (masc. sing.) — La chica que llegó tarde (fem. sing.) — Los chicos que llegaron tarde (masc. pl.) — Las chicas que llegaron tarde (fem. pl.)

Que itself never agrees with anything — only the verb does, and with whichever subject actually governs it: the antecedent when que is the subject of its clause (as in all four examples above), or the clause's own subject when que is the direct object instead (El profesor que conocemos, where conocemos agrees with "we," not with el profesor).

Common mistakes

• ❌ El hombre quien vive aquí → ✅ El hombre que vive aquí. (quien exists in Spanish, but it's reserved for people after a preposition or in more formal style — que is the everyday, general-purpose choice covering both people and things.)
• ❌ La casa que vive mi abuela (meaning "the house my grandmother lives in") → ✅ La casa en que/en la que vive mi abuela / La casa donde vive mi abuela. (when the missing piece is a location introduced by a preposition, bare que alone isn't enough — this calls for its own construction.)
• ❌ El libro que lo leo → ✅ El libro que leo. (que already stands in for the object — don't add a second object pronoun repeating it.)

Quick check

1. How could you combine Tengo un amigo. and Mi amigo vive en Chile. into one sentence using que?
2. Which word completes La película ___ vimos ayer fue muy buena?
3. Is que different for el hombre que llegó vs. la mujer que llegó? Why or why not?
4. What's wrong with El libro que lo compré es caro, and how would you fix it?

Key takeaways

• Que links a noun to extra information about it — the same word for people and things.
• It can be the subject or the direct object of its own clause, and it's never dropped the way English that/who sometimes is.
• Que never changes form for gender or number — only the verb around it does.
• Que alone doesn't cover every relative meaning (a place introduced by a preposition needs donde or en que/en la que) — those are their own constructions.