Is it "che" or "cui"? Well, we'll see this in today's video. Hello everyone and welcome to a new video. I am Stefano and I am an Italian teacher for foreigners. First of all welcome or welcome back to my channel. Of course, if you are new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe to this channel and turn on the notification bell if you don't want to miss any future lessons. In today's video we will talk about relative pronouns that are those pronouns that are used to link two sentences. There are several relative pronouns in Italian but in any case, we will focus mainly on che and cui. As I told you, relative pronouns are used to connect two sentences, they link two sentences together and this is obviously a very nice thing because we don't want to repeat ourselves over and over when we are talking. Therefore, relative pronouns are used to introduce a new sentence that explains in more detail a word we have in the main clause. Let's see an example right away to better understand: "The guys I met at the cinema are nice So what can we do? We can take this sentence and split it into the two original phrases that are "the guys are nice" "the guys are nice" and then "I met the guys at the cinema". So, not to say these two sentences, we can combine these two sentences and then add in the relative sentence introduced by a relative pronoun some more information about the boys and say "the guys I met at the cinema are nice". So what can we understand? Here in the first sentence "the boys are nice" "the boys" is the subject of our sentence. Instead in the second sentence, the relative sentence "I met the guys at the cinema" as you can see in this case the subject is "I" "I met" so the guys becomes the object of our sentence, the object of the action " I met the boys ". So what can we do to combine these two sentences? It's very, very easy: add "che" and say: "The guys I met at the cinema are nice". I am sure that you already know this rule, that perhaps it is also very natural for you to use "that" in this way. In fact, this is not the goal of the lesson. The goal of the lesson is to understand why and when to use "che" and to stop always using "che" but also to start using "cui" and other relative pronouns. So now I will try to explain to you why we use "che". It is very easy, we use "che" to introduce a relative sentence when the word we are replacing in the relative sentence has a subject or object function. In the relative sentence we say "I met the boys" and since "the boys" is the object of our sentence we can replace it with "che" and say "the guys I met at the cinema are nice". Now let's see another example "the ladies who were at the bar are my mom's friends" "the ladies who were at the bar are my mom's friends". Here again we have two sentences "the ladies are friends with my mom" the main sentence and "the ladies were at the bar". As you can see now in the second sentence, the relative sentence "the ladies were at the bar" has as the subject "the ladies" and then again because in this case the word we are replacing is a subject, we can use the relative pronoun "that" and combine the two phrases "the ladies who were at the bar are my mom's friends". But so now let's try to figure out when to use "cui" instead. Well it's very simple if we use the "that" to join two sentences when we are replacing a word that has an object or subject function, we will use the "cui" to replace any other word that in the second sentence has no object function and does not have the function of subject. So it has any other function and we will talk about an indirect object that can be introduced by any preposition. And now without talking too much, to say things in a very, very simple way, whenever you are replacing in the second relative sentence a word that is introduced by a preposition, you cannot use "che" but you have to use "cui". In fact, "cui" is always preceded by a preposition. And now pay attention this is a very important thing: the preposition is mainly decided by the verb, so when you join the two sentences you have to look carefully at the verb of the second sentence, of the relative sentence. In fact, thanks to the verb of the relative sentence you will be able to understand which preposition to use or not to use and decide whether to use the "che" or the "cui". Let's see an example right away: "The children I played with as a child lived near my house" So the first sentence is "the children lived near my house" The second sentence is "I used to play with the children as a child". Because in this case the verb to play requires the preposition "with", to play with someone. So pay attention, you are not replacing the children, you are replacing "with the children" because "I used to play with the children". And that's why we can't use "che" but we have to use "cui", because we are substituting an object that is in front of a preposition. "The children with whom" "with the children" "I played as a child lived near my house". Let's see another example: "I just finished reading the book I told you about last week" "I just finished reading the book I told you about last week". Here again we have two sentences: "I just finished reading the book" and "I told you about the book last week". So the first sentence is "I just finished reading the book" the second sentence is "I told you about the book last week". Now in this case what happens: well the verb to speak requires the preposition "of" when we say "talk about something" "talk about a book" "a movie" or a topic in general. So we are not replacing the book again but we are replacing the book because "I told you about the book" and therefore we have to use "cui" with the preposition "of". That's why we're going to say "I just finished reading the book I told you about last week". Let's see two other examples: Agin, very simple "the city is far" "Luca comes from the city". Since the verb to come requires the preposition "from" we will use "from which" "the city from which comes Luca is far away". "Who is the boy you gave the wine to?" "Who is the boy you gave the wine to?". In this case again two sentences "who is the boy" "you gave the wine to the boy". Because in Italian the verb to give is constructed in this way "to give something to someone" so to give an object to a person, since here we are substituting boy, for the boy, we will use "a cui". "who is the boy you gave the wine to". Now I want to tell you about "in cui" because "in cui" can have two meanings. In fact "in cui" can be used for places but also for time. I'll give you an example "The day when I was born it was very hot" "The day when I was born it was very hot". Here as you can see "in cui" has the function of "quando" in fact the two phrases are "the day was very hot" and "when I was born" that is "the day I was born" "the day of my birth" so in this case "in cui" has the function of "quando" "the day when I was born it was very hot". Some grammar books report that replacing "in cui" with "quando" and saying "the day when I was born" is correct, I honestly don't like it very much and I don't hear it very often. I feel that people preferably use "in cui" then "the day I was born". Now let's see "where" with a place and see this example "the city where I was born is in southern Italy" "The city where I was born is in southern Italy". Now here again we have two sentences "the city is in southern Italy" "I was born in the city". We can substitute "in the city" and say "in cui" but in this case "in cui" simply means "dove". In this case, however, it is absolutely correct to replace "in cui" with "dove". So you can use either "in cui" or "dove", both forms are accepted, corrected and used by everyone. There is no difference! The relative pronouns do not end there, actually there are two other very very important relative pronouns which are "quello che" and "chi". We will not talk about these relative pronouns in this video because that would be too much information all at once, but if you are interested in these other two relative pronouns and also other very interesting "cui" functions please let me know below in the comments and of course I will continue this series of relative pronouns videos. Now if you liked the video, please don't forget to support my channel by doing something simple and free: pressing the like button. 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