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Were or was?This is the place for questions about conjugations, verb tenses, adverbs, adjectives, word order, syntax and other grammar questions for English or Spanish. |
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#31
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I thought it was clear now.
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#32
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Okay, so I am going to re-visit this thread..... with the same questions.... because I'm still stuck on this. This week I was reading a commentary comparing the work of an attorney to that of a pastor of a church. In one sentence, he writes the following:
"Nuestra grey son nuestros clientes." Is "grey" the subject here? If so, then why does it not agree in number with the verb? I asked a friend who is a native Spanish speaker about this, and she insisted that there is no way to say this sentence with "es". Only "son". So how do I know, in a situation like this, that I am supposed to use a plural verb instead of a singular?
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- Lou Ann, de Washington, DC, USA Específicamente quiero recibir ayuda con el español de latinoamerica. ¡Muchísimas gracias! |
#33
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I think that nuestros clientes are the subject. Similar examples of inversion of word order can be found with lo que. E.g. taking one of the 54 hits for lo que [v] son from the Corpus del español:
Lo que tenemos son actores mediocres. |
#34
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Quote:
Nuestra grey es nuestra clientela. And since I don't recall any of my grammar, I'll leave it here. |
#35
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Quote:
Wouldn't there be some sort of parallel construction there? Or all they not all inverted word orders?
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- Lou Ann, de Washington, DC, USA Específicamente quiero recibir ayuda con el español de latinoamerica. ¡Muchísimas gracias! |
#36
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Quote:
In your sentence "Nuestra grey son nuestros clientes" the subject of the sentence is "nuestros clientes". It's like saying "Nuestros clientes son nuestra grey" (Ellos son nuestra grey). Just turn the sentence around. if it makes sense, use the verb in plural. You'll be right most of the time. It's a difficult subject to explain. I still have problems figuring out if I should say "Police are coming" or "Police is coming". I've heard both. But in Spanish there's no confusion: "La policía ya viene" - "La policía está en camino". Just think, in English "people" is plural, in Spanish "gente" is singular. "People is..." is another frequent mistake many English learning people make. Adding: Quote:
Nuestro escritorio es nuestro púlpito (this could change the meaning a little, not much, but maybe you should leave it alone), nuestros clientes son nuestra grey y la honestidad, la paz, la reconciliación, la justicia, la rectitud y la verdad SON nuestro mensaje. In my opinion the intended meaning of the sentence is not changed at all.
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Last edited by Luna Azul; April 30, 2011 at 02:56 PM. |
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plural, singular |
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