Përkthime - Frengjisht-Anglisht - Tu sais j'ai tellement peur de le perdre que...

Hi Alex,

Good work! I'd just suggest a few changes in order to be still more accurate and to sound natural in English. Tell me what you think, OK?

You know I'm so afraid of losing him
That I can't sleep at night anymore
He's the only one I see in my dreams
He whom I share my life with
I know I always ask him too many questions
But I can't help it
I know I have to be careful
So that he won't move away from me.

I agree with you in all your suggestions, Lilian.

I was told never to use "whom" and replace it with "who" because it sounds archaic to today's native English speakers.
Is it really true?

Thanks a lot!

Hum...no, that's not true, but it's not easy to explain either.

Let me try.

"whom" is used for a direct or indirect object or for the object of a preposition. Thus, we write:
"The actor who played Hamlet was great", since who is the subject of played. But we say:

"Whom do you like best?" because whom is the object of the verb like. Also we use "whom" in a case like:
"To whom did you give the letter?" because whom is the object of the preposition to.


In this text "who" is not the subject, but the object of the preposition "with".

I hope I have made myself understood

You are very clear and comprehensive Lilian, thank you a lot, but I didn't explain properly what I meant.

I was teached to replace "whom" with "who" in every case. Mainly when it's the object of a verb or of a preposition.
My English book presents your "Whom do you like best?" as "Who do you like best?"
And the same with prepositions.
My teacher says that the distinction between "who" and "whom" is nearly lost, and the first form is predominant among contemporary English people.

I meant this, sorry.

I perfectly understood what you meant.
This is not a matter of contemporaneity, but of formality. You may have been taught that in informal speech you can always use 'who', however in formal writing we still have to abide by the rules.
A simple hint to solve situations involving these words is:

Use "who" when you can change it by "he/she" and "whom" when you can change it by "him/her"

Examples:

Steve is the man whom I went fishing with last spring. (I went fishing with him.)

Ken is the man who moved next door. (He moved next door.)

Sally married a guy whom she met in Seattle. (She met him in Seattle.) In this last case "whom" can even be omitted.