Name: Improve your English: WHO or WHOM?
Uploaded: 2017-04-25T14:47:21.000Z
Duration: 14 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Gerund

Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "Who" vs. "Whom".

To-infinitive

That's right, today we are going to look at one of the most commonly confused and asked

about subjects in the English language, not just by new English learners but native speakers

So, we're going to use some grammar terminology, but I'm also going to give you some examples

that will make it very clear what the difference between these two words is.

So, first I'm going to talk about how to use them in statements, and after I'm going to

show you how to use them with quantifiers, and at the end I'll look at some question

Now, what this means is "who" is a subject relative pronoun, "whom" is an object relative pronoun.

Well, this means that when you use "who" in a sentence to give more information about

something, you are using it to give more information about a subject.

When you use "whom", you're using it to give more information about the object of a sentence.

So let's look at some examples first with "who".

Number one: "I have an uncle who works for Apple."

Number two: "There's someone who is waiting for you."

Number three: "Tom, who's been working here forever, recently found a new job."

Well, they all have a subject, a person who you're giving more information about.

So, I'm going to mark things up a little bit so you can see how this works.

Who are you giving more information about in this sentence?

You are giving more information about your uncle.

So you have "who", and "who" relates to an uncle.

So, if you have a subject, you're giving more information about the subject, and the subject

is doing an action after who, then you use "who".

"I have an uncle who works", he works for Apple.

Next: "There is someone who is waiting for you."

"Who" relates to "someone", a mystery person.

So there's someone who is waiting for you.

Yes, we are giving more information about someone, and the someone is doing an action.

They are the ones who are doing the action.

Next: "Tom, who's been working here forever, recently found a new job."

So we have "who", I'm just going to mark "who's", "who has" been working.

And we are saying that Tom has been working here.

So if the subject of the sentence is doing the action here, then you need to use "who".

One: "Ghandi is someone whom most people admire."

Three: "My best friend, whom I've known for 10 years, is getting married."

So, what's the difference between these sentences and the sentences with "who"?

"Ghandi is someone whom most people admire."

We are talking about Ghandi in this sentence.

But also important: Is Ghandi doing an action in this sentence or is he receiving an action

Here we have: "Ghandi is someone whom most people admire."

The sentence is actually talking about the people who admire Ghandi.

The people are doing an action to Ghandi,

and Ghandi is receiving the action in this sentence.

So, here, and this is true in most cases, after "whom" you usually have someone who

So: "Ghandi is someone whom most people admire."

Yes, we are talking about the guy, but the guy is receiving the action.

He's actually an object here, because she married him.

Now, I don't mean that the man is an object and the woman is the...

An object in many cases, so I don't mean any of that.

But grammatically, that's the guy whom she married.

The guy is receiving the action of marriage from her.

And finally: "My best friend, whom I have known for 10 years, is getting married."

But my best friend is receiving an action here.

So here, I'm saying I have known my best friend.

So if this person that you want to talk about is receiving some kind of action, like:

"Ghandi is someone whom most people admire.",

"My best friend, whom I've known for 10 years, is getting married."

If you have these cases you must use "whom".

A very easy trick, quick and easy to remember: In most cases, when you use "who" you're going

So: "He's someone who works all the time.", "They are a couple who is very happy."

And "whom" most of the time you are going to have a pronoun, a person, someone's name

So: "He is someone whom many people respect."

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Improve your English: WHO or WHOM?

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