Relative što and adverbial relatives

In short

use	pattern
što = koji (subject/object only)	ulica što* vodi do reke; object + clitic: pesma što smo je pevali*
what	ono što — ono što pamtim
after a whole clause (English which)	..., što* me je rastužilo*
everything that	sve što (case on sve: svega što) — people: svi koji
place	gde = u kojem/kojoj
time	kad = u kojem
manner	kako = na koji; onako kako

što never inflects here and never follows a preposition.

B1 · Lesson 38 · Odnosno što i priloške odnosne rečenice

The full explanation, from the lesson that teaches this rule

You already join a description to a noun with koji: kuća u kojoj sam odrastao (the house in which I grew up). Serbian has a handful of other words that do the same job, and in everyday speech they are often more natural than koji. This lesson covers four of them: što, gde, kad and kako. You know all four as question words; here they do not ask anything — they simply link a description to what came before, like English that, what, where, when, the way.

1. što instead of koji

In speech, što can replace koji when koji would be the subject or the direct object of its clause. Unlike koji, što never changes its form — it does not agree with the noun.

As subject: ulica što vodi do reke = ulica koja vodi do reke (the street that leads to the river).
As object, add a short pronoun (ga, je, ih) inside the clause to show what the object is: pesma što smo je pevali (the song that we used to sing — literally 'that we sang it').

što replaces koji only in these two roles. After a preposition you must keep koji: kuća u kojoj, never kuća u što. In careful writing koji is always the safer choice; što sounds relaxed and spoken.

2. ono što — 'what', and što after a whole clause

English what in 'what I remember' is ono što in Serbian: literally 'that which'. Learn it as one chunk. ono changes case for its role in the main sentence, što takes the role in its own clause: Ono što pamtim... (What I remember...), To nije ono što sam očekivao (That is not what I expected).

The same što can point back to a whole sentence rather than to a noun. English uses which here: 'They cut down the tree, which made me sad.' Serbian uses što, after a comma — the whole previous clause plays the part of ono: Posekli su lipu, što me je rastužilo.

Do not translate this which as koji or koje: there is no noun for koji to agree with. After a whole clause, always što.

3. sve što — 'everything (that)'

sve što means 'everything that', 'all that'. Again a chunk: sve changes case for the main verb, što stays as it is: Sve što znam... (Everything I know...), Sećam se svega što se desilo (I remember everything that happened — sećati se needs the genitive, so sve becomes svega, but što is still the subject of se desilo).

sve što is for things. For people use svi koji: svi koji su živeli u toj ulici (everyone who lived in that street).

4. gde, kad, kako — place, time and manner

After a noun of place, time or manner you can link with an adverb instead of a preposition plus koji. Both versions are correct; in speech the short one is usually preferred.

meaning	short relative	with koji	example
place	gde	u kojem / u kojoj / na kojem	kuća gde sam odrastao = kuća u kojoj sam odrastao
time	kad	u kojem / u kojoj	leto kad smo videli more = leto u kojem smo videli more
manner	kako	na koji	način kako govori = način na koji govori; onako kako sam zapamtila

The manner relative is most often met as onako kako — 'the way that, just as': Sve je ostalo onako kako sam zapamtila (Everything stayed just the way I remembered it).

All six at a glance

use	example	English
što for koji	čovek što je prodavao kukuruz	the man who sold corn
ono što / clause + što	ono što mi nedostaje; ..., što me je rastužilo	what I miss; ..., which made me sad
sve što	sve što znam	everything I know
gde	trg gde smo se sreli	the square where we met
kad	dan kad smo se preselili	the day when we moved
kako	onako kako je izgledala	the way it looked

The word order inside the linked clause is ordinary statement order, and clitics (je, sam, se, me) come right after the linking word: gde sam odrastao, što me je rastužilo.

Check what you read

4 of the 14 questions this lesson asks in the app. Type the form or pick the answer.

Reka ___ teče kroz grad bila je čista.
In which sentence can što NOT replace koji?
Pesma što smo ___ pevali bila je tužna.
Sećam se(sav) što se desilo te zime.

Examples from the course

The marked word is where the rule applies. Press play to hear the sentence.

To je kuća gde sam odrastao.
That's the house where I grew up.
Sve je ostalo onako kako sam zapamtila.
Everything stayed just the way I remembered it.
Pokazaću ti sve što volim u ovom gradu.
I'll show you everything I love in this town.
Naše selo više nije ono što je bilo.
Our village isn't what it used to be.
Sećam se svega što se desilo tog leta.
I remember everything that happened that summer.
Ulica što vodi do reke bila je puna dece.
The street that leads to the river was full of children.
Sećam se leta kad smo prvi put videli more.
I remember the summer when we saw the sea for the first time.
Ono što najviše pamtim je miris hleba iz pekare.
What I remember most is the smell of bread from the bakery.
Sve što znam o tom gradu naučio sam od dede.
Everything I know about that town I learned from my grandfather.
Nikad neću zaboraviti dan kad smo se preselili u Beograd.
I'll never forget the day we moved to Belgrade.