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Porte means door, qui means who and claque means slap.

How does this mean Slamming door?

I am not able to understand the usage of qui here?

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When you say for instance "Il y a une porte qui claque au premier étage." you mean that on the first floor a door is more or less regularly but constantly being banged against its door jamb by a draught. You use the same construction for other things, in particular windows and shutters, that are subjected to this action of the wind or of draughts.

  • Il y avait des volets qui claquaient dans la rue et personne ne pensait à les arrimer au murs par les attaches prévues à cet effet.

There is an important matter of context which makes the difference between the meaning given to the verb in what precedes and a meaning very similar. That meaning of the verb is "to bang against something once or to close with a bang". It might be difficult to make out which is which.

  • Elle se déplaçait maintenant dans la maison, passant d'étage en étage et ouvrant une chambre ou une salle de bain quand une porte claqua à l'étage supérieur. (Here a door banged once or got shut with a bang.)
  • La porte a claqué, je l'ai entendue, il faut aller voir. (banged, got shut)
  • La porte a claqué pendant un moment au rythme des coups de vents jusqu'à ce qu'il se lève et aille la fermer. (banged repeatedly)
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The OP is asking about the usage of qui, qui is a relative pronoun (un pronom relatif) that replaces the word preceding it (l'antécédent) and usually acts as a subject. The sentence after qui is a subordonnée relative complément de l'antécédent meaning it complements that word. An English analogy would be who, this is the guy who loves you, who is replacing the guy here in the same way that qui replaced the door.

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    +1 for addressing qui. Just my opinion but in light of OP's "qui means who," maybe you could add that qui can also mean that/which and give an example using one of those two (eg, "This is the door that I slammed in your face").
    – Papa Poule
    Oct 26, 2020 at 21:04
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    Thanks, but in your example that would be translated to que and not qui, c'est la porte que j'ai claquée dans ta face
    – user10191234
    Oct 26, 2020 at 21:09
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    It seems to me suggesting that is still relevant, e.g.: La porte qui fait du bruit → The door that makes noise.
    – jlliagre
    Oct 26, 2020 at 23:26
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    Although this answer is probably correct, I feel like if the OP understood all the technical words in the answer then he would already have enough knowledge to understand the French translation without needing to ask the question.
    – Neil Roberts
    Oct 27, 2020 at 12:21

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