Which: How and When to Use in English
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Which
Which is an interrogative pronoun or adjective and is used in questions and structures with a fixed or limited set of answers or possibilities:
Which of the following statements is not true? I'm going to give you some statements. Can you tell me if there are any that are not true?
Which Delavigne perfume do you prefer? Do you prefer this Delavigne perfume or that one?
Exercise 1
slogan do you prefer for our ad campaign?
Which slogan do you prefer for our ad campaign?
Which: 'Which' is the correct choice because it specifically asks a question about the noun 'slogan'.
Who: 'Who' is incorrect because it asks a question about a person, and not an object.
How many: 'How many' is incorrect because we are not asking about quantity. Also, the noun 'slogan' is singular, so we would not ask 'how many'.
Exercise 2
members of the IT department do you get along with best?
Which members of the IT department do you get along with best?
Which: 'Which' is the correct choice because it asks a question about the members of the department, whom are considered to be objects, even though they are people.
What: We cannot use 'what' to ask about people themselves, we must use the interrogative 'which members' or simply 'who?'.
How much: 'How much' cannot be used in this question. 'Members' is a countable noun, so we would use 'how many?'
Exercise 3
Polly: Philip, time do you usually wake up in the morning?
Philip: It depends on the day of the week. On the weekdays, I like to read the papers early in the morning.
Polly: Oh, ones do you read?
Philip: The Crawl Street Journal, The SF Gazette, and Playboy ...for the articles, of course.
Polly: Right.
Philip: It depends on the day of the week. On the weekdays, I like to read the papers early in the morning.
Polly: Oh, ones do you read?
Philip: The Crawl Street Journal, The SF Gazette, and Playboy ...for the articles, of course.
Polly: Right.
Polly: Philip, what 1 time do you usually wake up in the morning?
Philip: It depends on the day of the week. On the weekdays, I like to read the papers early in the morning.
Polly: Oh, which 2 ones do you read?
Philip: The Crawl Street Journal, The SF Gazette, and Playboy ...for the articles, of course.
Polly: Right.
Philip: It depends on the day of the week. On the weekdays, I like to read the papers early in the morning.
Polly: Oh, which 2 ones do you read?
Philip: The Crawl Street Journal, The SF Gazette, and Playboy ...for the articles, of course.
Polly: Right.
1 what: 'What time is it?' is the only way to pose this question. As an interrogative term, 'what' is used to ask general questions.
1 which: 'Which' is used to ask a specific question with a limited number of answers (which room? which one?). Because 'what time is it' is a more general question, we use the 'what' in this case.
1 when: Although 'when' is used to ask questions about time, we cannot use 'when' in this case because of the noun 'time' which follows. 'When time' is grammatically incorrect, though we might say 'when do you wake up in the morning?'
2 which: 'Which?' is used to ask a specific question with a limited number of possible answers. Polly knows that Philip reads newspapers every morning, and she wants to know which ones he reads specifically.
2 what: 'What?' is used to ask a general question, so we would not use it in this case. We might ask 'what do you like read?' which is a more general question.
Exercise 4
Applicant: It's an honor to meet you Ms. DeLune, I've heard many good things about you and this company...
Luna: Yes, I'm sorry, is your name again?
Applicant: My name? It's Alex.
Luna: Right. And are your interests Alex?
Applicant: Well, I like movies about dolphins, and working hard.
Luna: do you like more, working hard or dolphin movies?
Applicant: To be quite honest, I think I prefer dolphin movies. They can be very powerful emotionally.
Luna: Alex, I appreciate your honesty, but we're looking for someone who is less interested in dolphins, and more interested in working hard.
Luna: Yes, I'm sorry, is your name again?
Applicant: My name? It's Alex.
Luna: Right. And are your interests Alex?
Applicant: Well, I like movies about dolphins, and working hard.
Luna: do you like more, working hard or dolphin movies?
Applicant: To be quite honest, I think I prefer dolphin movies. They can be very powerful emotionally.
Luna: Alex, I appreciate your honesty, but we're looking for someone who is less interested in dolphins, and more interested in working hard.
Applicant: It's an honor to meet you Ms. DeLune, I've heard many good things about you and this company...
Luna: Yes, I'm sorry, what 1 is your name again?
Applicant: My name? It's Alex.
Luna: Right. And what 2 are your interests Alex?
Applicant: Well, I like movies about dolphins, and working hard.
Luna: Which 3 do you like more, working hard or dolphin movies?
Applicant: To be quite honest, I think I prefer dolphin movies. They can be very powerful emotionally.
Luna: Alex, I appreciate your honesty, but we're looking for someone who is less interested in dolphins, and more interested in working hard.
Luna: Yes, I'm sorry, what 1 is your name again?
Applicant: My name? It's Alex.
Luna: Right. And what 2 are your interests Alex?
Applicant: Well, I like movies about dolphins, and working hard.
Luna: Which 3 do you like more, working hard or dolphin movies?
Applicant: To be quite honest, I think I prefer dolphin movies. They can be very powerful emotionally.
Luna: Alex, I appreciate your honesty, but we're looking for someone who is less interested in dolphins, and more interested in working hard.
1 what: 'What is your name?' is a general question with many possible answers. We use 'what?' to ask questions of a general nature.
1 which: 'Which' is used ask specific questions such as 'which one? or 'which way should I turn?'.
2 what: 'What are your interests?' is a general question, so 'what' is the best choice here.
2 which: 'Which' is used to ask specific questions with a limited number of answers. It does not make sense to use it here. We might ask 'which sport do you prefer, hockey or tennis?'
3 Which: 'Which' is the best answer here because Luna is asking a specific question about Alex's preferences. There are only two possible responses, and so we use 'which' to ask the question.
3 What: Because this particular question is very specific, we would not use 'what', which we use for general questions here.
Exercise 5
Philip: Hey Polly, are you doing on Friday night?
Polly: Well, I was thinking about playing billiards in a bar downtown.
Philip: bar? Maybe I could meet you there...
Polly: Well, it's a special kind of bar, only for women.
Philip: I see. A bar full of women and just one man, I like my chances!
Polly: Well, I was thinking about playing billiards in a bar downtown.
Philip: bar? Maybe I could meet you there...
Polly: Well, it's a special kind of bar, only for women.
Philip: I see. A bar full of women and just one man, I like my chances!
Philip: Hey Polly, what 1 are you doing on Friday night?
Polly: Well, I was thinking about playing billiards in a bar downtown.
Philip: Which 2 bar? Maybe I could meet you there...
Polly: Well, it's a special kind of bar, only for women.
Philip: I see. A bar full of women and just one man, I like my chances!
Polly: Well, I was thinking about playing billiards in a bar downtown.
Philip: Which 2 bar? Maybe I could meet you there...
Polly: Well, it's a special kind of bar, only for women.
Philip: I see. A bar full of women and just one man, I like my chances!
1 what: 'What' is the best choice to pose this general question. We use 'what?' to ask general questions to which the answer has many possibilities. Philip is asking Polly about her plans for Friday night.
1 how: 'How are you doing'? is grammatically correct, but the question does not agree with the time frame of this question ('Friday night' indicates the future). Philip is not asking Polly how she is feeling, but what she is going to do on Friday night.
1 which: 'Which?' is only used to ask questions with a limited number of possible answers. Because Philip has no idea what Polly is doing, we can't use 'which?' here.
1 when: 'When?' asks a question about time, however the question 'When are you doing Friday night?' makes no sense.
2 Which: 'Which' is the best choice because Philip wants to know the specific bar to which Polly is going.
2 Whose: Although 'whose' is grammatically correct here, it is very unlikely that Kevin wants to know who owns the bar, or who the 'proprietor' of the bar is. We use 'whose' to ask questions about possession.
2 How: 'How?' asks a question about the way something is done, will be done or has been done. The question 'how bar?' makes no sense.
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