that and which ..make the difference..a lesson by me

spy4me · 2012-07-10, 22:43

hi all to this short lesson but it's pretty important
it is about the use of two important subordianting conjunction : "that" and "which"
"that" and "which" are used to add extra information about the subject
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first of all we should mention something, that is, the clause that follows "that/which" is called "relative clause or adjective clause" because it identifies the subject
for example:
the movie that we watched last week, was so scary
the Spanish national team which won the world cup in 2010, has won the european cup 2012
we watched last week / won the world cup 2012 both are relative clauses
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so when we use "that" and when we use "which' ?

we use "that" when the extra information that we add about the subject is important and relevant, that means we can not omit it, otherwise the meaning will be unclear
in the first exmple: the movie that we watched last week, was so scary .... you can notice that the information (we watched last week) is important and we can not delete it, elsewhere we can not know which movie was scary

wereas we use "which" when the extra information is not important is irrelevant and we can omit it, and the meaning is still clear
in the second example: the Spanish national team which won the world cup 2010, won the european cup 2012 ... you can notice that the information (won the world cup 2010) is not important and we can delete it

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the clause which is important is called "identfying clause", and the clause which is not important is called "non-identifying clause"
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notice: we can always replace "that" by "which" but we can never replace "which" by "that
"
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that's concerning talking about things, when the subject is for people we use who (subject) , that (subject) , or whom (object)
the comma is so important in such sentences, so pay attention
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i wish you benefit from this short lesson made by me