2.6.3 The “neuter” relative pronoun: Lo que

What about lo que?

Lo que is also a relative pronoun and it does translate into English as “that”.  However, it works a bit differently from the relative pronouns on the previous two pages.  On a grammatical level, it is notable because it does not change.  There is no agreement.  As you’ll see, this is because there can’t be.

On the level of meaning, Instead of replacing a single word in order to combine two sentences, lo que refers to an idea or concept that may have been expressed with several words or even sentences.  Let’s look at some examples from this chapter:

El delantal blanco:

Explota en grandes carcajadas, como si lo que hubiera oído fuera el chiste más gracioso que jamás ha escuchado.

You can copy the above sentence and find it in El delantal blanco.  This sentence occurs in one of the final fights between the empleada and the señora in which the señora has threatened to fire the empleada.  The empleada then laughs; she is laughing at the entirety of what she has previously heard, not one specific word.

El racismo que México no quiere ver:

Pues, porque es lo que te piden, porque eres moreno. (min 3:57-4:24)

Se empieza a hacer toda una ideología que lo que hace es justificar que hay razas inferiores y por eso hay que someterlas. (6:44-7:19)

…todos estos elementos que componen lo que a veces se expresa equivocadamente como raza son importantes para el valor y los derechos de una persona.  (9:48-10:03)

The examples from El racismo que México no quiere ver all include timestamps so that you can go to the video and listen to the grammar in context.  When lo que occurs in these sentences, it is referring to all that has been said in the 15-30 seconds indicated.  There are obviously many words and many nouns used in these fragments and it is impossible to have gender agreement in the relative pronoun.  It is in these cases that we use lo que.