Professor Dave again, let’s discuss chi.
We know about the relative pronouns che, cui, and il quale, in all its forms. To this list let’s add just one more pronoun, chi. This
can be confusing as it is close to the other relative pronoun, che, and also looks identical
to the interrogative pronoun “chi” which means “who”, but the relative pronoun
has a slightly different meaning that will make sense in context. First, to understand
its meaning, let’s realize that chi is technically an invariable double pronoun that combines
“colui” (to use the most common form) and “che” to get “the one who”. But
we will also use this in place of a number of phrases such as the following: As we said,
colui or colei che, which means he who or she who, can be written as chi. The same goes
for the plural, coloro che, which means those who. Then qualsiasi persona che, or whoever,
uno che, or the one who, and la persona che, or the person who. All of these can be shortened
to simply “chi”. As we said, this pronoun is invariable, does not require an antecedent,
and it can be accompanied by a preposition or not. Here are some examples using this pronoun.
Let’s note that chi is always followed by a verb in the singular, even if it is often
translated into English with a plural, and is used only for people.
With all of these relative pronouns we have
learned, some of which are have identical meanings and are interchangeable, you may
wonder why we need so many. The answer is simply that Italians like variety, and this
particular pronoun “chi” is very convenient to use, and is thus very common. Here are
some more examples to drive things home.
And to this list, we must now add some examples from proverbs and popular sayings. These don’t
always translate perfectly in a literal sense, but knowing them will help you learn the malleability
of the language, and give you some fun phrases to add to the list.
And that wraps things up with relative pronouns, so let’s check comprehension.