Relative Clauses (Relativsätze)

What is a Relative Clause?

A relative clause gives extra information about a noun. In English: "The man who speaks German..." / "The book that I bought..."

Relative Pronouns

The relative pronoun matches the gender and number of the noun it refers to, and the case it has in the relative clause.

| | Masc | Fem | Neut | Plural | |-|------|-----|------|--------| | Nom | der | die | das | die | | Acc | den | die | das | die | | Dat | dem | der | dem | denen | | Gen | dessen | deren | dessen | deren |

The forms are almost identical to the definite articles, except dem → dem stays, and genitive uses dessen/deren.

Examples

- Der Mann, der dort steht, ist mein Bruder. (The man who is standing there is my brother.) [Nom — subject of relative clause]

- Das Buch, das ich gelesen habe, war toll. (The book that I read was great.) [Acc — object of relative clause]

- Die Frau, der ich geholfen habe, ist nett. (The woman whom I helped is nice.) [Dat — helfen takes dative]

Relative Clauses with Prepositions

The preposition comes before the relative pronoun:

- Das Thema, über das wir gesprochen haben, ist wichtig. (The topic that we talked about is important.) - Der Mann, mit dem ich arbeite, heißt Klaus. (The man with whom I work is called Klaus.)