en la que / en el que

Question

Hi guys! I need some assistance on how to properly use EN LA QUE or EN EL QUE. Thanks in advance! Happy Holidays!

Answer 1

Hi guys! I need some assistance on how to properly use EN LA QUE or EN EL QUE. Thanks in advance! Happy Holidays!

I am really not sure on what level you need this answered.

At the basic, unlike English, which allows dangling prepositions (despite the grammarians that say it doesn’t), Spanish does not allow them.

So if you have an adjectival clause that requires the preposition “en”, and that adjectival clause refers back to a singular feminine object, you use “en la que”’, and likewise use en el que, en las que, or en los que when it refers to an appropriate noun.

For instance:

La casa en la que estamos es tuya. The house in which we are is yours.

In English we normally would say: The house we are in is yours. You cannot say: La casa que estamos en es tuya. That is Spanish so bad it may not be intelligible, at least not to a Spanish speaker not used to English word order.

On a more advanced level, the article is frequently dropped, here is an explanation of when it is allowed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_pronouns

 After en, the definite article tends to be omitted if precise spatial location is not intended:

• Lo hiciste de la misma forma en que lo hizo él = "You did it [in] the same way [that/in which] he did it" (note also how "in" with the word forma is translated as de when used directly, but then changes to en when used with the relative pronoun)

• La casa en que vivo = "The house in which I live" (as opposed to La casa en la que estoy encerrado = "The house inside which I am trapped")

:) - ian-hill, Dec 20, 2016