Relative Pronouns *onde* and *cujo* in Portuguese

In Brief

Use onde for a place: a cidade onde moro (“the city where I live”). Use cujo, cuja, cujos, cujas to express possession; the form agrees with the thing possessed, not with its owner: o homem cuja casa visitei. After prepositions, o qual and its agreeing forms provide a clear, often formal alternative: a razão pela qual vim.

Overview

A relative clause is a part of a sentence that identifies or adds information about a noun: in “the city where I live,” the words in bold describe the city. Portuguese often introduces such clauses with que or quem. At B1, onde, cujo and o qual let you express more specific relationships: place, possession, and links governed by a preposition.

These forms do not map perfectly onto English. English where is close to onde, but English also uses where loosely with words such as “situation” or “stage.” Careful Portuguese generally prefers em que or no qual for those abstract meanings. English whose has one fixed form, whereas Portuguese cujo changes to match the gender and number of the following noun.

The central question is what relationship the relative clause expresses. Is the antecedent (the noun being described) a place? Does one noun belong or relate to another? Does the verb or expression require a preposition? Answering that question usually reveals the right relative form.

How It Works

Onde: “where” for a place

Onde refers back to a place and normally has the sense “in which” or “at which.” It does not change for gender or number.

Pattern	Example	Meaning
place + onde + clause	a casa onde cresci	the house where I grew up
place + em que + clause	a casa em que cresci	the house in which I grew up
place + na qual/no qual + clause	a casa na qual cresci	the house in which I grew up

In the basic pattern, there is no separate em before onde: say a cidade onde moro, not a cidade em onde moro. The meaning of location is already built into onde.

When movement toward a destination requires the preposition a, careful usage distinguishes aonde (“to where”):

• Aonde vocês vão? — “Where are you going?”
• A praia aonde fomos fica longe. — “The beach we went to is far away.”

With other spatial relations, place the required preposition before onde: de onde (“from where”), por onde (“through/by where”) and até onde (“as far as where”). Whether a verb requires a can vary in everyday usage and by region; the traditional contrast is onde for location and aonde for motion governed by a.

Time: usually em que, not onde

A time expression is not normally treated as a literal place. Use em que:

• O dia em que cheguei estava chuvoso. — “The day I arrived was rainy.”
• Foi uma época em que trabalhávamos muito. — “It was a period when we worked a lot.”

Depending on the noun and register, no qual, na qual, nos quais or nas quais can replace em que. In everyday Portuguese, em que is usually lighter and more natural.

Cujo: possession and close relationships

Cujo means roughly “whose” or “of which.” It joins an owner (the antecedent) to a possessed or related noun that comes immediately after it.

Following noun	Form	Example
masculine singular	cujo	o autor cujo livro li
feminine singular	cuja	o autor cuja biografia li
masculine plural	cujos	a empresa cujos produtos usamos
feminine plural	cujas	a empresa cujas lojas fecharam

The agreement follows the possessed noun, the noun after cujo. In a mulher cujo filho estuda aqui, cujo is masculine singular because filho is masculine singular; the owner mulher does not control the form.

The structure can be understood as two statements combined:

• Visitei a casa do homem. — “I visited the man’s house.”
• O homem mora aqui. — “The man lives here.”
• O homem cuja casa visitei mora aqui. — “The man whose house I visited lives here.”

Do not put an article between cujo and the following noun. Portuguese says cuja casa, never cuja a casa. Adjectives may follow the noun normally: uma escritora cujos primeiros romances fizeram sucesso.

Possession here is broader than legal ownership. Cujo can connect people or things through family, authorship, parts, characteristics or institutional relationships: a aluna cuja mãe é médica, um romance cujo final surpreende, um projeto cujos objetivos mudaram.

O qual after prepositions

The set o qual, a qual, os quais, as quais agrees with its antecedent—the noun it refers back to.

Antecedent	Form	With common contractions
masculine singular	o qual	do qual, no qual, pelo qual, ao qual
feminine singular	a qual	da qual, na qual, pela qual, à qual
masculine plural	os quais	dos quais, nos quais, pelos quais, aos quais
feminine plural	as quais	das quais, nas quais, pelas quais, às quais

These forms are especially useful after a preposition, where they make the grammatical link explicit:

• A razão pela qual vim... — “The reason for which I came...”
• O assunto sobre o qual conversamos... — “The subject we talked about...”
• As colegas com as quais trabalho... — “The colleagues I work with...”

The preposition comes from the verb or expression inside the relative clause. Conversar sobre requires sobre; trabalhar com requires com; precisar de requires de. Portuguese normally keeps that preposition before the relative form rather than leaving it at the end as conversational English often does.

In many cases, preposition + que is a shorter neutral alternative: o assunto sobre que conversamos. With a person, preposition + quem is common: a colega com quem trabalho. O qual is often chosen in formal writing, after longer prepositions, or whenever it prevents ambiguity.

Examples in Context

Portuguese	English	Note
A cidade onde moro é tranquila.	The city where I live is quiet.	Onde refers to a real place.
Este é o café onde nos conhecemos.	This is the café where we met.	Location; em que is also possible.
A praia aonde fomos fica longe.	The beach we went to is far away.	Traditional aonde with movement toward a destination.
Conheci a vila de onde vieram os meus avós.	I visited the village my grandparents came from.	De onde expresses origin.
O dia em que cheguei estava chuvoso.	The day when I arrived was rainy.	Use em que for time.
Houve uma fase em que eu quis desistir.	There was a period when I wanted to give up.	An abstract period, not a physical place.
O homem cuja casa visitei é arquiteto.	The man whose house I visited is an architect.	Cuja agrees with casa.
A pesquisadora cujo artigo ganhou o prêmio dará uma palestra.	The researcher whose article won the prize will give a talk.	Cujo agrees with artigo, not pesquisadora.
Falamos com os alunos cujas dúvidas ainda não foram respondidas.	We spoke with the students whose questions have not yet been answered.	Feminine plural dúvidas requires cujas.
É um museu cujos jardins ficam abertos até tarde.	It is a museum whose gardens stay open until late.	Masculine plural jardins requires cujos.
Esta é a razão pela qual liguei.	This is the reason I called.	Por + a qual contracts to pela qual.
O relatório ao qual me referi já foi publicado.	The report I referred to has already been published.	Referir-se a supplies the preposition a.
A decisão da qual discordamos será revista.	The decision we disagree with will be reviewed.	Discordar de requires de, producing da qual.
O prédio no qual funciona a biblioteca será reformado.	The building in which the library operates will be renovated.	Formal alternative to onde.

Notice that the preposition in da qual comes from discordar de. Relative forms do not change the preposition required by the verb.

Common Mistakes

Making cujo agree with the owner

• Wrong: A professora cuja livro comprei...
• Right: A professora cujo livro comprei...
• Why: Livro, the thing related to the professor, is masculine singular. The gender of professora does not determine cujo.

Adding an article after cujo

• Wrong: O homem cuja a casa visitei...
• Right: O homem cuja casa visitei...
• Why: Cujo already functions as a determiner (a word introducing the noun). It cannot be followed by o, a, os or as.

Using onde for time or an abstract idea

• Wrong in careful usage: O dia onde cheguei...
• Right: O dia em que cheguei...
• Why: A day is a time expression, not a location. Likewise, prefer uma situação em que to uma situação onde in edited or formal language.

Doubling the location preposition

• Wrong: A cidade em onde moro...
• Right: A cidade onde moro... / A cidade em que moro...
• Why: Basic onde already expresses “in/at which.” Choose one construction rather than combining them.

Dropping the required preposition

• Wrong: O assunto o qual conversamos...
• Right: O assunto sobre o qual conversamos...
• Why: The expression is conversar sobre algo. Carry sobre into the relative clause.

Copying English end-position prepositions

• Wrong: A pessoa a qual falei com...
• Right: A pessoa com quem falei... / A pessoa com a qual falei...
• Why: Portuguese places the preposition before the relative pronoun. English often says “the person I spoke with,” but Portuguese does not normally strand com at the end.

Usage Notes

Onde is frequent and natural in both speech and writing when its antecedent is a location. You will also hear it with abstract nouns—uma situação onde...—especially in spontaneous speech. This usage is widespread, but em que or na qual remains the safer choice in formal writing when no physical or conceptual location is intended.

Cujo is fully standard, but it is more common in writing, news, academic language and prepared speech than in relaxed conversation. Speakers often recast the sentence instead of using it: Conheci o homem. Visitei a casa dele. That conversational alternative is natural, but constructions such as o homem que visitei a casa dele are generally avoided in edited standard Portuguese.

O qual can sound heavier than que or quem. Its value is clarity. In a long sentence, its gender and number may show exactly which noun it refers to. It is also natural after compound prepositions such as perto de, diante de and por meio de: a ferramenta por meio da qual analisamos os dados.

Portuguese varieties differ in their everyday handling of prepositions and of onde/aonde. In formal standard usage, preserve the preposition selected by the verb and use the location–destination distinction. In conversation, you may hear that distinction weakened; recognizing variation is useful, but the standard pattern is the best production target.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

Prepositions can also come before cujo

If the grammar inside the relative clause requires a preposition, it appears before cujo:

• a autora de cujo livro falamos — “the author whose book we talked about” (falar de)
• o candidato em cuja experiência confiamos — “the candidate whose experience we trust” (confiar em)
• a empresa com cujos representantes nos reunimos — “the company with whose representatives we met” (reunir-se com)

The preposition does not affect agreement: cujo still agrees with the noun immediately after it.

O qual can clarify an ambiguous antecedent

Consider Encontrei a irmã do médico, a qual trabalha no hospital. The feminine a qual points to a irmã, not the masculine médico. Agreement can therefore do work that unchanging que cannot. Punctuation and context still matter: commas mark an added comment, while no commas normally identify which person or thing is meant.

Onde can have wider textual uses

In sophisticated writing, onde may refer to a point in a text or argument conceived metaphorically as a location: o capítulo onde o autor apresenta a hipótese. Many editors would still prefer em que here. This is a stylistic choice, not a reason to use onde freely after every abstract noun.

Alternatives are not always interchangeable in tone

Compare:

• A casa onde moro — ordinary and direct.
• A casa em que moro — neutral, slightly more explicit.
• A casa na qual moro — more formal or contrastively precise.

All three can express the same basic relationship, but good Portuguese chooses the lightest form that remains clear. Mastering relative pronouns is therefore not just selecting a grammatically possible form; it is also matching the register and rhythm of the sentence.

Practice Tips

1. Work backward from the verb. Take combinations such as morar em, vir de, referir-se a and falar sobre. Build relative clauses while keeping the preposition: a cidade onde moro, o lugar de onde vim, o relatório ao qual me referi.
2. Underline two nouns in every cujo sentence. Label the first “owner/related entity” and the second “possessed or related thing.” Then make cujo agree with the second: a empresa — cujas — filiais.
3. Rewrite pairs of short sentences. Turn Conheço a escritora. O romance da escritora ganhou um prêmio into Conheço a escritora cujo romance ganhou um prêmio. Then say the same idea conversationally in two sentences so you learn both formal and everyday options.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Relative Pronouns: que, quem — reviews the most frequent relative links before adding place, possession and formal agreeing forms.