que referring to an entire sentence

In lesson 15.2, Alejandra says “al final la encontraste y la destrozaste, que es lo que importa”, in which “que” in the relative clause refers to the entire sentence of the main clause. However, I learned that when referring to an entire sentence, we should use “lo que” instead of “que”.  So should this sentence be “al final la encontraste y la destrozaste, lo que es lo que importa” ?

Thank you. 

¡Hola JinH!

Thanks for your question!

Strictly speaking, when que “that / which” is acting as a relative pronoun, it is used to refer back to a person or a thing in a sentence. As a result, it normally follows a noun - like so: La ​pintura que más me gusta es ésta “The painting that I like best is this (one).”

Lo que “that which / what,” meanwhile, is used to stand in for or refer back to an entire idea or phrase - like in this sentence here: ¡Lo que pasó fue increíble! “What happened was incredible!” 

Nevertheless, native speakers often use the phrase que es lo que “which is what” to refer back to ideas or phrases. An example in addition to the one in the lesson would be: Estamos juntos, que es lo que importa “(We) are together, which is what matters.” So although this seems to contradict the usual rules with que, it's both very possible and very common. If you wanted to avoid it for a somewhat more elegant wording, you would need to use somehting like eso “that”: Estamos juntos, y eso es lo que importa “We are together, and that is what matters.” Using lo que twice in this sort of situation (i.e. lo que es lo que importa) would be quite uncommon and unusual - like saying “that which is that which matters” or “what is what matters” in English. 

I hope that this is helpful! Let me know if you still have any questions!

Saludos,

Liss

Thank you Liss.