Query on Rel Pronouns

Question

With the addition of the new reference article about relative pronouns, I've been reading about their usage quite a lot and questioning my learning. The following sentence appears in the reference section:

Saludé a mi amiga Yesica, al que vi ayer. (I said hello to my friend Yesica, who I saw yesterday.)

My question is; should the 'al que' actually be 'el que' or indeed should it actually be 'quien' because we are talking about a person and there is a preposition (and comma) between the antedecent and the rel pronoun?

Answer 1

Saludé a mi amiga Yesica, al que vi ayer. (I said hello to my friend Yesica, who I saw yesterday.)

It should be "a la que"; "al que" is for men.

My question is; should the 'al que' actually be 'el que' or indeed should it actually be 'quien' because we are talking about a person and there is a preposition (and comma) between the antedecent and the rel pronoun?

Being a person does not mean that you have to use "quien". The conjunction "que" is used for people as well as objects. You could actually say "a quien", but it is a much less common option than "a la que", especially in spoken Spanish, and there are countless structures where you can only use "que" and not "quien". I would recommend that you get used to use the Spanish "que".

Thank you Lazarus. I think sometimes I get myself confused because I try to understand something totally, without having practised in a variety of situations. I'll keep blodding on though :-) - billygoat, Jun 16, 2011