Who/Whom/Whose/Who's

Who/Whom

Whose/Who's

Learn the difference

To understand how to use 'who', 'whom' and 'whose' you first have to understand the difference between subjects, objects and possessives.

The Subject

The subject does the action:

He likes football.

She goes to university.

They enjoy travelling.

Who

'Who' is a subject pronoun like 'he', 'she' and 'they'. We use 'who' to ask which person did an action or which person is in a certain state.

Who wrote that letter?

Who is the manager?

Who is going to prepare dinner?

The Object

The object receives the action:

The employees respect him.

I know her.

The sailors waved to us.

Whom

'Whom' is an object pronoun like 'him', 'her' and 'us'. We use ‘whom’ to ask which person received an action.

Whom are you going to ask to the party?

Whom did they choose as team captain?

Whom did they summon?

Possessives 

Possessives tell us the person something belongs to:

His car is new.

I like his latest novel.

We returned to our hotel.

Whose

'Whose' is a possessive pronoun like 'his', and 'our'. We use 'whose' to find out which person something belongs to.

Whose phone is this?

Whose is this umbrella?

Whose car is blocking the drive?

Who's

This is a contraction for "Who is"

Who's in the car? - Who is in the car?

Who's going to clean this? - Who is going to clean this?

Who's managing the company? - Who is managing the company?