A relative pronoun is the word that hooks a second clause onto a noun: in English, that, which, who, whose, where. They let you pack two ideas into one sentence — "the book" + "I bought the book" become "the book that I bought." Brazilian Portuguese has the same toolkit, but the way the tools are distributed is strikingly different from English, and this page gives you the map before the detailed sub-pages fill in each road.
The single most important fact about Portuguese relatives is this: one word, que, does almost everything. Where English carefully chooses between that, which, and who, Portuguese reaches for que in nearly every case. The other relatives — o qual, cujo — exist mainly in formal and written registers. Spoken Brazilian Portuguese is even more radical: it often dodges the "hard" relatives entirely by restructuring the sentence. Understanding this formal/colloquial split is the key to sounding natural rather than bookish.
The full set at a glance
| Relative | Covers | English | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| que | people & things; subject & object | that, which, who(m) | all registers — the default |
| quem | people only, after prepositions; headless clauses | who(m), he who | neutral |
| o qual / a qual / os quais / as quais | people & things; agrees in gender/number | which, who(m) | formal, written |
| cujo / cuja / cujos / cujas | possession | whose | formal, written |
| onde | places | where | neutral |
| quando | times | when | neutral |
Que — the universal relativizer
Que is invariable. It never changes for gender, number, or whether it points at a person or a thing. This is its superpower and the reason it dominates.
O livro que comprei ontem é ótimo.
The book that I bought yesterday is great.
A mulher que mora aqui do lado é dentista.
The woman who lives next door is a dentist.
O ônibus que passa na minha rua sempre atrasa.
The bus that goes down my street is always late.
Notice that the same word covers a thing (o livro), a person (a mulher), and another thing (o ônibus). English would split these into that / who / that; Portuguese does not bother. See Relative Que for the full treatment.
Quem — people, after prepositions
When a preposition (com, de, para, em, por) needs to attach to a relative pointing at a person, Portuguese switches from que to quem.
A pessoa com quem falei foi muito gentil.
The person I talked to was very kind.
Aquele é o professor de quem todo mundo gosta.
That's the teacher everyone likes.
Quem also heads proverb-like clauses with no separate antecedent — "he who," "whoever":
Quem espera sempre alcança.
He who waits always gets there in the end.
The full story is on Relative Quem.
O qual — the formal disambiguator
O qual and its forms agree in gender and number with the antecedent. Their main jobs are to clarify which noun a relative refers to and to follow longer prepositions, where que sounds clumsy. This is squarely formal and written territory.
Esse é o motivo pelo qual decidi sair da empresa.
That is the reason why I decided to leave the company.
A reunião, durante a qual tomamos a decisão, durou três horas.
The meeting, during which we made the decision, lasted three hours.
More on Relative O Qual / A Qual.
Cujo — whose
Cujo is the possessive relative, "whose." It agrees with the thing possessed, not the owner, and takes no article after it. Like o qual, it is firmly formal.
O escritor, cujos livros vendem milhões, raramente dá entrevistas.
The writer, whose books sell millions, rarely gives interviews.
A empresa cuja sede fica em São Paulo abriu uma filial no Recife.
The company whose headquarters is in São Paulo opened a branch in Recife.
The details are on Relative Cujo.
Onde and quando — place and time
For places, onde ("where") relativizes cleanly and avoids the awkward em que / no qual:
A cidade onde nasci fica no interior de Minas.
The city where I was born is in the countryside of Minas.
Esse é o restaurante onde a gente se conheceu.
That's the restaurant where we met.
For times, quando ("when") plays the same role:
Lembro do dia em que tudo mudou.
I remember the day when everything changed.
The colloquial reality: restructuring and resumptive pronouns
Here is where Brazilian Portuguese diverges sharply from the textbook. Standard grammar says that to relativize an object of a preposition you front the preposition: o assunto *de que falamos* ("the topic we talked about"). In real speech, Brazilians overwhelmingly avoid this. They use two strategies instead.
1. Drop the preposition and just use que:
O filme que eu te falei já saiu do cinema.
The movie I told you about has already left theaters.
Prescriptively this "should" be o filme *de que te falei*, but almost no one says that in conversation.
2. Resumptive pronoun — leave que up front and repeat the role with a pronoun later in the clause:
A menina que eu falei com ela ontem é prima da Júlia.
The girl I talked to yesterday is Júlia's cousin.
Here que opens the clause and com ela ("with her") resumes the prepositional role. Grammar books reject this, but it is extremely widespread in casual speech across Brazil.
Comparison with English
Three differences will save you from the most common mistakes:
- Portuguese rarely lets you drop the relative. English freely omits it: "the book I bought." Portuguese keeps que: o livro *que comprei. You cannot say *o livro comprei.
- No stranded prepositions in formal Portuguese. English ends clauses with prepositions ("the person I talked to"). Formal Portuguese fronts them ("a pessoa com quem falei"). Colloquial Portuguese sidesteps the problem entirely, as shown above.
- Portuguese collapses who/which/that into que. Do not agonize over choosing among them — there is one default word.
Common Mistakes
❌ O livro comprei ontem é ótimo.
Incorrect — the relative que cannot be dropped.
✅ O livro que comprei ontem é ótimo.
The book I bought yesterday is great.
❌ A pessoa que falei com é simpática.
Incorrect — stranded preposition; use com quem (or restructure).
✅ A pessoa com quem falei é simpática.
The person I talked to is nice.
❌ A casa onde eu moro nela é antiga.
Incorrect — onde already covers 'in which'; no resumptive needed in writing.
✅ A casa onde eu moro é antiga.
The house where I live is old.
❌ O homem qual mora aqui é médico.
Incorrect — o qual needs its article and is overly formal here; use que.
✅ O homem que mora aqui é médico.
The man who lives here is a doctor.
Key Takeaways
- Que is the universal default for people and things, subject and object.
- Quem takes over for people after prepositions and heads "he who" clauses.
- O qual and cujo are formal/written; recognize them, use them in formal writing.
- Onde (place) and quando (time) are the natural everyday choices.
- Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese drops prepositions or uses resumptive pronouns — natural in speech, avoided in writing.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- 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 O Qual / A Qual: Formal AlternativeB2 — The formal, gender- and number-agreeing relative o qual — used to disambiguate antecedents and after longer prepositions in written Brazilian Portuguese.
- Relative Cujo: Whose (Formal)B2 — The possessive relative cujo — how it agrees with the thing possessed, takes no article after it, and why Brazilian speech replaces it with que...dele/dela.
- Relative Clauses: OverviewA2 — What relative clauses are in Brazilian Portuguese — clauses that modify a noun using que, quem, onde, o qual, or cujo — and the key split between restrictive (no commas) and non-restrictive (commas) clauses.
- Relative Clause SyntaxB1 — The structure of Brazilian Portuguese relative clauses — que, quem, o qual, cujo, onde — and the major split between standard pied-piping and the spoken-BR resumptive/dropping strategies.