Combining Sentences About People

When two short sentences share the same person, you can join them into one longer sentence using who or that. Take these two sentences: "I have a friend. She works at Google." The word "she" refers back to "friend," so you replace it with who: "I have a friend who works at Google." The relative clause "who works at Google" now gives extra information about the friend, all in one sentence instead of two.

The most common mistake when combining sentences is keeping the repeated word. "I have a friend who she works at Google" is wrong — remove "she" because who already replaces it. Another important point: the relative clause usually goes directly after the noun it describes. "The man is my uncle. He called you yesterday" becomes "The man who called you yesterday is my uncle" — not "The man is my uncle who called you yesterday." Practising this word order is essential for writing clear, natural English at B1 level and above.