Name: Study English - Series 1, Episode 8: Crocodile Tourism
Uploaded: 2018-06-24T23:05:15.000Z
Duration: 9 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hello. Welcome again to Study English, IELTS preparation. I'm Margot Politis.

Today we'll look at some words that cause a lot of confusion - the relative pronouns

'that', 'which' and 'who', and then we'll do some pronunciation practice.

But first, let's listen to some people talk about a very dangerous tourist attraction

People have always been fascinated with death. Most of the mysteries that you see on television,

the films that you see, involve murder in one kind or another. Crocodiles are one of

the last remaining dinosaurs and the idea of a crocodile coming out of the water and

grabbing somebody is absolutely riveting.

I read about the death of the German tourist who was taken by a crocodile. It didn't put

me off coming to the Northern Territory, quite the opposite in fact.

I think the NT is famous for its crocodiles and probably quite famous for its crocodile

attacks and that tourists who come here would like to be, or feel as though they were, involved

Tourists want to have a story to take home and if they can say that they were in the

Northern Territory where the German tourist was taken by the croc, then it adds to their

So he thinks people may actually be attracted to the Northern Territory because of the dangerous

But now we're going to leave the crocodiles, and talk about something else that can be

dangerous - the relative pronouns 'who', 'which' and 'that'.

People have always been fascinated with death. Most of the mysteries that you see on TV,

the films that you see, involve murder of one kind or another.

I read about the death of the German tourist who was taken by a crocodile.

Most of the mysteries 'that' you see on TV involve murders.

I read about the death of the tourist 'who' was taken by a crocodile.

Relative pronouns are used to introduce relative clauses.

They give more information about a subject.

The 'that clause' gives us more information about the subject - 'the mysteries that you

'The tourist' is the subject. The 'who clause' gives more information - 'the tourist who

But how do you choose between 'who', 'which' or 'that'?

Well the relative pronoun 'who' is only used with people.

'That' is usually only used with things as well. Sometimes, in informal language, it

But when you're learning English, it's probably best to avoid using 'that' for people.

The most difficult thing with these relative pronouns is working out the difference between

As a general rule, we use 'which' when the clause does not affect the meaning of the

A 'which' clause just gives us extra information.

It can be left out of a sentence, and the sentence still has the same meaning.

When 'which' is used in this type of clause, we put commas around it.

Here, the clause 'which is on the bed', just gives us additional information.

We can take it out, and the sentence still makes sense.

There is only one hat, it's the hat on the bed. We take out the which clause, and the

We use 'that' for clauses that are a crucial part of the sentence. They are actually part

Notice 'that' clauses do not use commas, because they are a crucial part of the sentence.

There are a number of hats that this sentence could be referring to. But the sentence is

specifically talking about the hat on the bed, so we use 'that'.

The 'that' clause cannot be taken out of the sentence.

It doesn't make sense here, because it doesn't tell us which hat is being discussed.

It will take some practice to get used to when to use 'who', 'which' and 'that'.

To sum up, we use 'that' to define the subject.

We use 'which', in a clause with commas, to add extra information.

You will notice 'which' often being used in place of 'that', especially in spoken language.

While not strictly correct, it is very common.

The word 'who' is a bit simpler. It's only used when the subject is a person, and can

be used in both of these types of clauses.

OK. Now we're going to do some pronunciation practice.

Students learning English often complain that native speakers speak too fast.

Well, it's true. English speakers do run their words together, so it's often very difficult

to hear when one word ends and another begins.

To make your spoken English sound natural, it's important for you to do this too.

You need to learn to link words ending in a 'final consonant' sound to words with an

Let's look at some words linked with 'of'.

the last remaining dinosaurs, and the idea of a crocodile coming out of the water and

me off coming to the Northern Territory, quite the opposite.

But in sentences, these phrases will usually become linked together:

Notice that 'of' in these phrases is unstressed.