A relative clause is a way of packing a whole sentence inside another one to describe a noun. Instead of saying two short sentences — "I bought a book. The book is great." — you fold the second into the first: O livro que comprei é ótimo ("The book that I bought is great"). The little word que is the hinge that joins them. This page gives you the map: what relative clauses are, the pronouns that introduce them, and the one distinction that controls almost everything — restrictive versus non-restrictive. The detailed pages linked throughout go deeper on each piece.
What a relative clause does
Take two facts about the same thing and you can merge them. The shared noun (the antecedent) appears once in the main clause; the relative pronoun stands in for it inside the embedded clause.
Conheço uma médica. A médica fala alemão. → Conheço uma médica que fala alemão.
I know a doctor. The doctor speaks German. → I know a doctor who speaks German.
Here que points back to médica and simultaneously serves as the subject of fala inside its own clause. That double duty — pointing back and playing a grammatical role in the embedded clause — is what makes a word a relative pronoun.
Este é o restaurante que abriu mês passado.
This is the restaurant that opened last month.
A música que você me mandou ontem é linda.
The song you sent me yesterday is beautiful.
The relative pronouns of Brazilian Portuguese
Portuguese has a small set of relative pronouns, but in practice one of them does most of the work.
| Pronoun | Used for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| que | things and people, subject or object — the all-purpose default | o filme que vi; a pessoa que ligou |
| quem | people, almost always after a preposition | o amigo com quem viajei |
| onde | places | a cidade onde nasci |
| o qual / a qual | formal alternative to que/quem, esp. after prepositions | o motivo pelo qual saí |
| cujo / cuja | possession ("whose") | a autora cujo livro li |
A crucial contrast with English: Portuguese never drops the relative pronoun. English happily says "the song you sent" with no "that," but Portuguese requires que: a música *que você mandou.* Leaving it out is ungrammatical.
O cara que eu conheci na festa me ligou.
The guy (that) I met at the party called me.
Achei o documento que estava procurando.
I found the document (that) I was looking for.
Que is invariable
Unlike English, where the choice between "who" and "which/that" depends on whether the antecedent is a person, que never changes. It does not inflect for gender, number, or animacy. O homem que..., a mulher que..., os carros que... — always que.
As crianças que moram aqui brincam na praça todo dia.
The children who live here play in the square every day.
This is one of the rare places where Portuguese is simpler than English: you do not have to decide between "who," "which," and "that." One word, que, handles all three.
The big distinction: restrictive vs. non-restrictive
Every relative clause is either restrictive (defining) or non-restrictive (explanatory). This is the single most important idea about relative clauses, and it changes the punctuation, the intonation, and sometimes the meaning.
A restrictive clause tells you which one — it narrows the noun down. It takes no commas and is pronounced as one continuous unit.
As alunas que estudaram passaram na prova.
The students who studied passed the exam. (only the ones who studied)
A non-restrictive clause adds extra, parenthetical information — you could remove it and still know exactly which noun is meant. It is set off by commas (and pauses in speech).
As alunas, que estudaram bastante, passaram na prova.
The students, who studied a lot, passed the exam. (all of them — and by the way, they studied)
The difference is real, not cosmetic. The first sentence implies some students did not study and did not pass. The second says all the students passed, and throws in that they studied. The commas carry that meaning.
English works the same way ("My brother who lives in Rio" vs. "My brother, who lives in Rio,"), so the concept transfers cleanly. What does not transfer is the habit of dropping the pronoun and the comma rules being optional — in Portuguese the comma is doing grammatical work, not decoration.
The sub-pages: where to go next
This overview opens onto a small family of pages:
- Restrictive relative clauses — defining clauses in depth, plus the colloquial Brazilian habits (resumptive pronouns, dropped prepositions).
- Relative clauses with prepositions — what happens when the relative pronoun is governed by em, com, de, para... (a casa em que moro, o amigo com quem falei).
- The relative pronoun que and quem — the pronoun-level detail.
- Cujo / cuja — the "whose" relative, which is almost extinct in speech but expected in writing.
Common Mistakes
❌ A música você mandou é linda.
Incorrect — the relative pronoun cannot be dropped as in English.
✅ A música que você mandou é linda.
The song you sent is beautiful.
❌ O homem qual mora aqui é meu tio.
Incorrect — 'qual' needs an article ('o qual') and is rare as a plain subject; use 'que'.
✅ O homem que mora aqui é meu tio.
The man who lives here is my uncle.
❌ Meu pai que mora no Rio vem amanhã. (meaning: I have only one father)
Incorrect — without commas it implies you have more than one father and are picking out the Rio one.
✅ Meu pai, que mora no Rio, vem amanhã.
My father, who lives in Rio, is coming tomorrow.
❌ A cidade que eu nasci é pequena. (written register)
Stigmatized in writing — 'nascer' needs 'em', so the formal form is 'em que' / 'onde'.
✅ A cidade onde eu nasci é pequena.
The city where I was born is small.
Key Takeaways
- A relative clause embeds one sentence inside another to describe a noun, joined by a relative pronoun.
- que is the workhorse — invariable, for people and things, subject or object.
- The relative pronoun is never dropped in Portuguese (unlike English).
- Restrictive clauses (no commas) narrow down which one; non-restrictive clauses (commas) just add information.
- The comma carries meaning; it is not optional decoration.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Relative Pronouns: OverviewA2 — How Brazilian Portuguese links clauses with que, quem, o qual, cujo, onde, and quando — and why que does almost all the work in real speech.
- Restrictive Relative ClausesA2 — Restrictive (defining) relative clauses in Brazilian Portuguese — clauses that identify which one, written without commas — contrasted with non-restrictive clauses, plus the colloquial resumptive pronouns and dropped prepositions common in BR speech.
- Relative Clauses with PrepositionsB1 — How Brazilian Portuguese handles relative clauses where the relative pronoun is governed by a preposition — formal 'preposição + que/quem/o qual' (a casa em que moro, o amigo com quem falei) versus the colloquial dropped-preposition and resumptive-pronoun strategies.
- Relative Que: The Universal RelativizerA2 — Why que is the all-purpose Brazilian relative for people and things, subject and object — and how speech avoids the prescriptive preposition + que.
- Relative Quem: For People After PrepositionsB1 — How quem relativizes people after prepositions (com quem, de quem, para quem) and heads proverb-like headless clauses meaning 'he who / whoever'.
- Relative Cujo (Whose)B2 — How the relative possessive cujo/cuja/cujos/cujas works — it agrees with the thing possessed, takes no article, and belongs to formal register.