The relative quien(es): people only

Explicación

Quien (plural quienes) is a relative pronoun used only for people. Its main home is after a preposition: el socio de quien te hablé, la persona a quien llamaste, los clientes con quienes trabajamos. It agrees in number but not gender.

In subject position it appears in two cases: non-restrictive clauses set off by commas (mi hermano, quien vive en Francia, viene en julio) and proverb-like generic statements (quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta; quien termina, avisa, 'whoever finishes, let me know').

For a restrictive subject clause, though, Spanish uses que, not quien: la persona que llamó (not *la persona quien llamó). So after a preposition or a comma → quien is natural; directly defining a person as subject → que.

Ejemplos

Reglas relacionadas

• The relative que: the all-purpose 'that/which/who'
• El que and el cual: relatives with an article