Search from various 영어 teachers...
Vítor
The girl who/that/x I talked to
Hi everyone,
I would like to know which one is better in a (F) formal written context or in an (NF) informal context [while talking with friends, for example]. Do all these sentences sound natural for you?
a) The woman I talked to is very beautiful.
b) The woman THAT I talked to is very beautiful. [I hadn't written that at first]
c) The woman who I talked to is very beautiful.
d) The woman whom I talked to is very beautiful.
e) (Your suggestion - how would you say it if you were talking to your friends? how would you write this if you were writing a book?)
Thank you very much!
(don't hesitate to correct my English mistakes!)
2017년 1월 22일 오후 2:59
답변 · 12
I would say people would use the first one for both writing and speech. In modern English, writers do not use formal writing for fictional books.
Also, I would probably keep the tenses the same, "The woman I talked to was very beautiful".
Although she is still beautiful now, we would say she was beautiful because we are talking in the past tense, it sounds weird to have the past for to talk and present for to be.
2017년 1월 22일
Hi Victor,
d) is grammatically correct. We use "whom" to emphasise on the person who received an action. In this case, the woman received the talking action from you.
If you would like to use "who", then you can write :
I spoke to the woman who is very beautiful.
Hope this helps.
Cheers, Lance
2017년 1월 22일
Hi Vítor! In casual, informal spoken English, all four of your examples are fine. When you're talking to friends, they will understand exactly what you mean if you use any of them. (By the way, your A and B are exactly the same.)
In formal written English, D would be correct. This should be "whom" because the woman you're referring to is the object of your sentence and not the subject (your subject is "I").
There would also need to be another change: "is" should be "was" because, in this example, your verbs need to match their tenses. Since you "talked" to her, she "was" very beautiful (obviously, she probably still "is" beautiful right now, but you're not currently looking at her to be able to confirm that, so it's not present tense). So your final sentence should read:
"The woman whom I talked to was very beautiful."
I hope I've helped. Please let me know if you still have questions.
2017년 1월 22일
'Whom' is not informal in any way. It would be exceedingly rare and odd to hear your d in an informal context.
2017년 1월 22일
아직도 답을 찾지 못하셨나요?
질문을 남겨보세요. 원어민이 도움을 줄 수 있을 거예요!
Vítor
언어 구사 능력
중국어(북경어), 영어, 프랑스어, 독일어, 히브리어, 이탈리아어, 포르투갈어, 스페인어
학습 언어
중국어(북경어), 영어, 독일어, 히브리어, 이탈리아어, 스페인어
좋아할 수도 있는 읽을거리

How to Ask for a Raise or Promotion in English
9 좋아요 · 8 댓글

The Key to Learning a Language Faster
29 좋아요 · 8 댓글

Why "General English" is Failing Your Career (An Engineer’s Perspective)
30 좋아요 · 12 댓글
다른 읽을거리
