{"id":73490,"date":"2020-03-26T16:12:46","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T16:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73490"},"modified":"2020-03-26T16:12:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T16:12:46","slug":"which-vs-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/which-vs-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Which vs. What"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is little difference of meaning between\u00a0<b>which<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>what<\/b>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Which\/what\u00a0<\/b>is the largest continent in the world?<\/li>\n<li><b>Which\/what\u00a0<\/b>train did you come on?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Which<\/b>\u00a0is preferred when the speaker has a limited number of choices in mind.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We have got white and brown bread.\u00a0<b>Which\u00a0<\/b>will you have?<\/li>\n<li><b>Which\u00a0<\/b>colour do you want \u2013 red, pink, blue or purple?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When the speaker is not thinking of a limited number of choices,\u00a0<b>what<\/b>\u00a0is used.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>What\u00a0<\/b>is your telephone number? (NOT Which is your phone number?)<\/li>\n<li><b>What\u00a0<\/b>language do they speak in Chile? (More natural than Which language \u2026)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Before nouns,\u00a0<b>which<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0<b>what<\/b>\u00a0can be used to ask questions about both people and things.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Which teacher\u00a0<\/b>do you like best?<\/li>\n<li><b>What writers\u00a0<\/b>do you like?<\/li>\n<li><b>Which colour\u00a0<\/b>do you want \u2013 red or brown?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When these words are used as pronouns, without nouns immediately after them, we use\u00a0<b>who<\/b>, not\u00a0<b>which<\/b>, for people.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Who\u00a0<\/b>is your favourite writer? (NOT Which is your favourite writer?)<\/li>\n<li><b>Who\u00a0<\/b>won \u2013 Alan or Peter? (NOT Which won \u2026)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However,\u00a0<b>which<\/b>\u00a0can be used in questions about people\u2019s identity, and\u00a0<b>what<\/b>\u00a0can be used to ask about people\u2019s jobs and functions.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018<b>Which\u00a0<\/b>is your boy?\u2019 \u2018The one blue shirt.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>\u2018<b>What\u00a0<\/b>is your husband?\u2019 \u2018He is a doctor.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is little difference of meaning between\u00a0which\u00a0and\u00a0what. Which\/what\u00a0is the largest continent in the world? Which\/what\u00a0train did you come on? Which\u00a0is preferred when the speaker has a limited number of choices in mind. We have&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[2173,2212,69],"class_list":["post-73490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-what","tag-which","tag-which-or-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73491,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73490\/revisions\/73491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}