Who and Whom difference?

StewartC1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Who and Whom difference?

In my part the UK we never use 'whom' only 'who' so I'm lost as to when to use 'Qui est-ce que' and 'Qui est-ce que'. Could you please help.
Asked 6 years ago
GruffKwiziq team member

Hi Stewart

Yes, it's unfortunate that whom is slipping out of use, as the distinction is very important in French. The good news is, it's very easy to grasp because the difference between who and whom is exactly the same as the difference between he and him.

The trick is to rearrange a sentence in your head and see if he or him fits best, and that tells you which pronoun to use in French.

For example one of these forms used to be 'whom':

Who's that? Oh, He's that guy from ... (Not: Him's that guy...)

Who  did you meet? Him. (Not: I met he.)

So, it's easy to see that the second one (in years gone by) would have been:

Whom did you meet?

Note: The distinction here is between the subject pronoun ('he') and the object pronoun ('him'). If grammar jargon like subject and object are still a bit vague, then you might find this explainer video helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z_0Dtnon0c

Hope that's helpful!

Who and Whom difference?

In my part the UK we never use 'whom' only 'who' so I'm lost as to when to use 'Qui est-ce que' and 'Qui est-ce que'. Could you please help.

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