# EN: who / which



## Syagrius

Bonjour

Dans la phrase suivante : 

Il souffle de la fumée au visage de Paul qui n'a pas de réaction.

Pour la traduction anglaise doit-on dire :

_He blows smoke in Paul’s face who doesn’t react. _
ou bien
_ He blows smoke in Paul's face which doesn't react._

Lequel doit-on écrire au juste?  Une amie Australienne me faisait la remarque à ce sujet.  Votre opinion s.v.p.

Merci

*Note des modérateurs : *nous avons fusionné plusieurs discussions pour créer ce fil.


----------



## RuK

Assuming you're talking about a thing - Paul's face - it's which. However you'd really say "He blew smoke in Paul's face. Paul didn't react".


----------



## hibouette

Bonsoir,

who ! car c'est une personne.


----------



## Paf le chien

Dans mes souvenirs confus on dit :

- who pour une personne 
- which pour une chose


----------



## Randisi.

Maybe: He blows smoke into Paul's face, which remains impassive.


----------



## ladrey

ba...si c'est le visage de la personne qui reste immuable alors je dirais "which" ; et si tu utilises "who" ça veut dire que c'est la personne qui reste stoique.

 en fait même en français c'est assez complexe.... je pense que ça dépend ce sur quoi tu veux faire porter l'action.bon courage!


----------



## greysoul

hello everybody

*happy to see another mate who does not like it*

OR

*happy to see another mate which does not like it*

and why???

thx in advance


----------



## hehehehe

"who", of couse
"who" refers to person 
"which" refers to things or animals


----------



## tilt

Salut, bienvenue sur les forums WR.

Ce que j'ai appris à l'école, c'est que _who_ est pour les personnes et _which_ pour les choses. 
Les avis de véritables anglophones seraient bienvenus.


----------



## pyan

Another welcome to the forum, greysoul. 



tilt said:


> Les avis de véritables anglophones seraient bienvenus.


The advice of this Anglophone is that the previous answers were fine.  

(If the context were different, if the context were to do with the questions. "which?" and "who?", the answer would be different.)


----------



## Erylis

I have a doubt about what I should say to make a correct sentence :

"There were two characters who/which did this trip."

If someone could help me and tell me which one is the right word... It would be nice !
Thank you


----------



## SwissPete

I usually use 'who' for people, and 'which' for objects.


----------



## Fryegirl4

"There were two characters who/which did this trip."

Who is appropriate for people but this sentence doesn't sound correct to me.  You normally don't "do" a trip, you "take" a trip.  Also the use of 'characters' here makes me think you are talking about fictional characters from a book, if that's not correct, just say "people".  What was the original french?


----------



## Erylis

Actually, I'm talking about characters in a text, yes. And I don't have any French sentence, I just have to answer to this question : "How many characters made that trip ?"


----------



## Keith Bradford

SwissPete said:


> I usually use 'who' for people, and 'which' for objects.



I'm glad of that.

Because in fact there is no other correct solution in modern English; we stopped using them the other way round some 400 years ago.


----------



## Millie24

You could make it easier by leaving out both who and which. As in 'Two characters made/did/took the trip.'


----------



## Doña Inés

Hello everyone ! 
I was wondering whether I should use which or who when referring to a country. For instance, would the translation of "L’Allemagne a annoncé sa sortie du nucléaire d’ici à 2022, imitée par la Suisse, qui a décidé d’abandonner l’atome." be "Germany announced that it would get out of the nuclear system by 2022, imitated by Switzerland, which decided to give up the atom." ?  Or should I avoid the problem and use "that" ? 
Thank you for your help !


----------



## Keith Bradford

This refers to the entire nation-state, so you're justified in using "which".  However, I don't think many British readers would object to "who".  But "that" would be quite wrong.

Certainly if we were talking about sports teams, we'd use "who".


----------

