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Pronouns in questions

Level: beginner

We use who to ask questions about people:

Who is that?
Who lives here?
Who did you see?

We use whose to ask about possession:

Whose coat is this? or Whose is this coat?
Whose book is that?   or Whose is that book?
Whose bags are those? or

Whose are those bags?

We use what to ask questions about things:

What is that?
What do you want?

We use which to ask someone to choose something:

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I've got two books. Which do you want?

We can also use what and which with nouns:

What subjects did you study at school?
What newspaper do you read?
Which newspaper do you read –
The Times or The Guardian?
Which book do you want?
Which one is yours?

Pronouns in questions 1


We often have a preposition at the end of a question:

Who does this book belong to?
What are you looking for?
Which university did you go to?

Pronouns in questions 2


Pronouns in questions 3



I don't understand. how is the organization of sentences to make questions ?
I'm confuse

Just move the pieces in the correct order.

Hello Aryam27,

Our Question forms & subject/object questions page explains the word order in questions. Please take a look and then if you have any further questions, you're welcome to ask us again.

Best wishes,
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello, wish you have a good time.
Looking deeply into question words, we'll notice that which and whose are determiners rather than pronouns, is that right?
Is the same rule about the relation between word order and the information asked, i.e. subject, object, etc applied to these two words?
Thank you in advance.

Hello solitude,

Yes, 'whose' and 'which' can be considered determiners in that they identify a noun and pronouns when they stand for possessive noun phrases. In questions, these words are used before the noun they modify and then there is typically subject-verb inversion, e.g. 'Whose car have you borrowed?' (if they go with the object of the verb).

All the best,
The LearnEnglish Team

Here it says to use who to asks questions about people.
Where do we use 'whom'?

Hello Sourav,

In general, 'whom' is only used in some quite formal situations – in the vast majority of situations nowadays, 'who' is used. When it is used, 'whom' always refers to an object of some sort, either the object of a verb (e.g. 'Whom did you contemplate?') or of a preposition ('To whom have you conveyed the message?').

All the best,
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Sourav,

Yes, what I was trying to sa was that you can say both 'Whom did you see?' and 'Who did you see?'; in both sentences, 'who' or 'whom' is the object of the verb phrase 'you see'. The first is very formal and not used very often nowadays. The second is much more common and the one I'd recommend you use.

Best wishes,
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Learning English Team.

In the sentences used in the exercises, it appears this one: "What are you afraid of?"
My question is:

I can also say "What are you afraid?" or it is necessary to use the prepositions?

Hello Dangelitus,

Yes, the preposition is necessary in these questions. It's quite common for questions in English to end with prepostions:

Where are you from?

Where did he go to?

Which hotel did you stay in?

Best wishes,


The LearnEnglish Team