waarmee, waarover: relative pronouns with a preposition

A relative clause adds information about a noun: de man die daar staat (the man who stands there). See die and dat for the basic forms. This page covers the case where that clause also needs a preposition — English says the book about which everyone talks, or the man with whom I work. Dutch handles those two situations differently, depending on whether you are talking about a thing or a person.

For a thing, replace die or dat with waar and stick the preposition onto it: de stoel waarop ik zit (the chair I am sitting on). For a person, keep the preposition and use wie: de vrouw met wie ik werk (the woman I work with).

1. Decide: is the noun a thing or a person?
2. For a thing, begin with waar and add the preposition directly behind it; the two fuse into one word: op → waarop, over → waarover, in → waarin, aan → waaraan, van → waarvan. Het boek waarover we praten. (The book we are talking about.)
3. For a person, put the preposition first and follow it with wie: met wie, voor wie, aan wie. De docent met wie ik Nederlands oefen. (The teacher I practise Dutch with.)

Two prepositions change their spelling when they join waar: met becomes mee and tot becomes toe. So it is waarmee (not waarmet) and waartoe. This is the same change you meet in erop, ermee, eraan and in question words like waarmee? (with what?) — see question words.

For things, waar and its preposition often come apart, with other words wedged in between. Both the joined and the split version are correct, and the split one is common in everyday speech.

• Joined: de stoel waarop ik zit. Split: de stoel waar ik op zit. (the chair I am sitting on) — same meaning.
• Het probleem waar we het over hadden. (The problem we were talking about.) Here waar sits at the front and over slides to the end.
• De trein waar ik elke dag mee reis. (The train I travel with every day.) The mee still comes from met.

The preposition drifts toward the end of the clause, just before the verbs — the same movement you see with er: Ik reken erop becomes Ik reken er niet op.

• For a thing or an idea, always use the waar form — never op dat or met die. Say het onderwerp waarover or het onderwerp waar ... over, not het onderwerp over dat.
• For a person, use preposition + wie: de buurman voor wie ik zorg (the neighbour I care for), de vriendin aan wie ik het gaf (the friend I gave it to).
• Note that met stays met in front of wie (met wie); it only turns into mee inside the joined waarmee.

Two errors show up often. The first is using a waar form for a person. In everyday speech you may hear de arts waarmee ik een afspraak heb (the doctor I have an appointment with), but careful Dutch, including the inburgering exam, wants de arts met wie ik een afspraak heb — preposition + wie for people. The second error runs the other way: putting a preposition in front of die or dat for a thing. Die and dat cannot sit after a preposition, so de brief waar we het over hadden (the letter we were talking about) is correct, while de brief over die we het hadden is wrong.