 Reducing relative clauses. How do you reduce these sentences? This is the house that Zach built. The perinos are the family who live there. The people who live there are really nice. This is the house Zach built. The perinos are the family living there. The people who live there are nice. You can't reduce this one. What's the trick? You can reduce some sentences by deleting relative pronouns, which are words like that, who, whom, and which. How do you do that? It depends on what comes after the relative pronoun. If there is a new subject, delete the relative pronoun. For example, this is the house that Zach built. Delete the relative pronoun that because there is a new subject following it, Zach. The reduced sentence is, this is the house Zach built. If there is no new subject, don't delete anything. For example, they are the people who live there. Because there is no new subject after who, you don't have to delete anything. If you're not sure how this works, go back and check the previous example for comparison. Note, there are some other words which function as relative pronouns, such as when, where, and why. They follow the same pattern for reducing. This is the place where I live. Can be reduced to this is the place I live. This is the time when it starts. Can be reduced to this is the time it starts. That is the reason why I love her. Can be reduced to that is the reason I love her. Be careful, these are not always relative pronouns, only when they give more information about a noun. You can reduce some sentences by deleting relative pronouns and be verbs. For example, that is and who are. Let's look at some examples. The man who was swimming in the pool is my uncle. We can delete who is. The new sentence is, the man swimming in the pool is my uncle. Here's another example. These are some products that are made by my company. Delete that are. These are some products made by my company. Be careful with adjectives. Look at the sentence, the dog that was clever won the competition. This doesn't work. For example, if you say the dog clever won the competition, that would be incorrect. However, you can say, the clever dog won the competition. In some cases, you can change the main verb to its ing form. For example, the people who live there are very nice. You can change that too. The people living there are very nice. But it doesn't always apply. For example, look at the sentence, the guy who plays volleyball is my best friend. We can say the guy playing volleyball is my best friend. However, the meaning is different. If you say the guy playing volleyball, that means he's playing volleyball now. If you say the guy who plays volleyball, that means he plays volleyball all the time. So there's a slight meaning change here. You have to be careful with that. What about which? The relative pronoun which is special. Sometimes it is used like that. For example, this is the computer which I bought last year. This sentence can be reduced to this is the computer I bought last year. Sometimes which is used to introduce a comment. For example, he bought her a gift. Which was a nice gesture. The last clause, which was a nice gesture, is just a comment made by the speaker. Notice when we do this, you have to put a comma before the which. Anything else? Never delete the relative pronoun whose. For example, the man whose car I hit was very angry. You can't delete anything here. Now it's time to test yourself. Which of these sentences can you reduce and how? Take a few minutes to look over the sentences and see what you can do to reduce them. Not all of them can be reduced. Stop the video and take as much time as you need for this exercise. When you're ready, resume the video or just continue the video to see the answers. Here are the answers. Number one, this is the game I told you about. Two, the guy driving the car is my nephew. Three, is that the cat that sat on your hat? You can't reduce this one. Four, who is the man living in that house? Five, she is the girl I introduced you to last week. Six, that's the man whose axe I borrowed. Seven, that's the place my parents live. Eight, the woman who sang that song is very famous. You can't reduce that one without changing the meaning. Thanks for watching. To see more videos like this, click on the link above. Or check out our websites for more free English learning resources.