# they are people,---- five days ¿?



## Tadeo

Good evening!!!
This might seem like pretty basic grammar (actually it is), but this question has got my attention all day long.

Now, let's see:

They are people.
We are friends.
---- are days.
---- are cars.

What words am I missing there??? (pronouns for sure right???)
I came up with this question after translating the following:
_Son cinco días en la playa..._
So only thing I could think of, was:                                                    We will spend five days in .....or  It is gonna be five days......

But what happens with the situations above, how do I express a simple idea like that???
Those/that ¿?
There ¿?

There woks in some cases like: There will be a day....
So??? Help!!!!!!


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## jacinta

Hello Tadeo,

Wow, I´m afraid I am as confused as you!  Can you narrow your question down to be more specific?  I don´t understand what you are asking.


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## Tadeo

Ok I'll try:
What pronoun should i use to express the following phrases:

Son cinco días.  ___are five days.
Son dos carros. ____are three cars.

I mean generally with inanimates.


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## jacinta

The problem is that I´m not sure we would say something like that in English.  Something like this makes sense:  There are seven days in a week.

The literal translation of your sentences would be:

They are five days.
They are two (dos) cars.  

By themselves with no other information, they don´t make much sense.


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## alicatado

Tadeo said:


> Ok I'll try:
> What pronoun should i use to express the following phrases:
> 
> Son cinco días.  ___are five days.
> Son dos carros. ____are three cars.
> 
> I mean generally with inanimates.



Son cinco dias en la playa.....
depending on the context this would be translated as:
We will spend five days at/on the beach. or
There will be five days at the beach before we return to Medellin to catch our flight.

The other sentence is more straightforward:

There are two cars


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## Tadeo

That's exactly what I meant.
In a previous post they just told me I can't use _they _with inanimates.

I know they're very simple sentences but in spanish we use this kind of structure a lot.

There are to cars , well I have thought about it but I would translte as = Hay dos autos.

Let's see:
¿Qué son?
Son monitores de alta densidad.

What are_________?
______ HD flat screens.

my option would be those or they (but many consider they wrong)

What word am I missing there???


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## alicatado

Tadeo said:


> That's exactly what I meant.
> In a previous post they just told me I can't use _they _with inanimates.
> 
> I know they're very simple sentences but in spanish we use this kind of structure a lot.
> 
> There are to cars , well I have thought about it but I would translte as = Hay dos autos.
> 
> Let's see:
> ¿Qué son?
> Son monitores de alta densidad.
> 
> What are_________?
> ______ HD flat screens.
> 
> my option would be those or they (but many consider they wrong)
> 
> What word am I missing there???



That is a bit complicated, I'll have to think about it.
It appears that it may depend on context, distance, familiarity, and whether or not the things being referred to have been activated in the dialogue.
If they are right in front of us and i don't know what exactly it is that you are referring to I might ask
What are they? The stress in spoken English would be on the word 'are'. The idea here is something like "What the heck are they?, I've never seen anything like that before." In this sense I'm creating distance between me and the objects.
On the other hand, if I say "what are those", it shows more familiarity and perhaps interest.

That's my two sense for the moment


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## Tadeo

Well maybe we can make this easier: which would be the most common structure or you?

Let's see:
¿Qué son?
Son monitores de alta densidad.

What are_________?
______ HD flat screens.

my option would be those or they (but many consider they wrong)

What word am I missing there???


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## alicatado

Tadeo said:


> Well maybe we can make this easier: which would be the most common structure or you?
> 
> Let's see:
> ¿Qué son?
> Son monitores de alta densidad.
> 
> What are_those________?
> _they're____ HD flat screens.
> 
> my option would be those or they (but many consider they wrong)
> 
> What word am I missing there???


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## Tadeo

So,it is not incorrect to use  _They  _with inanimates?
They are five trees
They are two cars
They are six days


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## le_sacre

I think it is not technically incorrect, Tadeo, just extremely uncommon.

In my opinion, it is like a somewhat archaic usage:

"How many are we today [in our party]?"  "We are five."  (rare)
"How many were they?"  "They were fifteen."        (VERY rare)

This is a very uncommon way of speaking in the United States.  It may be more common in the United Kingdom.  Also, it seems to me that it would be even more unusual to say the above examples if you were referring to inanimate objects--perhaps more likely if you were personifying them.

["How many are we today?" may not be so rare, actually, but the more common response would be something like "There are five of us."]

At any rate, we would usually say:

"What are those?"  "Those are five trees."
"How many are there [of those]?"  "There are five."


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## ha4ker

Tadeo said:


> So,it is not incorrect to use _They _with inanimates?
> They are five trees
> They are two cars
> They are six days


There is more for quantity - There are five trees.
What are they - Those/They are trees.
There are two cars...Those/They are cars. There are 10 cars.
What are those monitors -They/Those are HD monitors. There are quite a few monitors.
I can't explain it gramatically too well but it i tried to explain it.


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## i heart queso

'What are they?'
'They're HD flat-screens.'

'What are they?'
'They're trees!'

I would say 'what are those?' more when making a difference between two things: 'what are these? ... And what are those?'

You can say 'What is Christmas? It's a day to celebrate...' and therefore 'What is la Semana Santa? They are days to celebrate...'

But with numbers we no longer use 'they'.  So: Son cinco días en la playa = there will be five days at the beach. (that's the best translation I could come up with, unfortunately.)


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## jacinta

My question to you is:  What does "Son cinco días en la playa" mean?  
Explícame en español si prefieres.

¿Es algo como:  Vamos a pasarnos cinco días en la playa?


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## Tadeo

Yes, jacinta.

Son cinco días en la playa=  there will be five days at the beach or we'll spend five days at the beach.

At least in my country _Son cinco días en la playa_ would be a common structure for a short answer of the following kind:

¿En qué consiste el premio? (What does the prize consist of/what is the prize?)
R= Son cinco días en la playa......(although the most correct answer would be something like: el premio consiste en un viaje de cinco días en la playa).

or ¿Qué tan lejos queda Cancún?(How far is Cancun?)
R= Bastante son cinco días de carretera.
(again, not grammatically correct,  but a very commo structure).


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## Tadeo

le_sacre said:


> I think it is not technically incorrect, Tadeo, just extremely uncommon.
> 
> In my opinion, it is like a somewhat archaic usage:
> 
> "How many are we today [in our party]?"  "We are five."  (rare)
> "How many were they?"  "They were fifteen."        (VERY rare)
> 
> "



So, according to these, in common usage and/or everyday speech wich would be the answer?

"How many are we today [in our party]?" There are five of us. ¿?
"How many were they?"  There were .....

This a little bit confusing to me, because, as many other non-native speakers,  I was taught to always answer a question with the same pronoun/axuxiliar thet it was done with, so:

How many are we? We are five. This is how i would tend to answer.
Is it wrong or just uncommon???

Very interesting, I think this is the kind of stuff that you don't learn at school.

Thanks for your interest again.


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## jacinta

La traducción de esta estructura sería:  *It is*...

What is the prize?  It is five days at the beach.

How far is Cancún?  It is five days by freeway.


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## Tadeo

Thank you jacinta.

That is when i have the question preceding the answer:

 What is the prize?  It is five days at the beach.

But what if wanna express a single idea like thise

Son dos perros.

I know that in English you would tend to say: There are two dogs or Those are to dogs, wich for me in spanish that would be:
Hay dos perros 
Esos son dos perros.

So wgat would be your thought?


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## alicatado

Tadeo said:


> Thank you jacinta.
> 
> That is when i have the question preceding the answer:
> 
> What is the prize?  It is five days at the beach.
> 
> But what if wanna express a single idea like thise
> 
> Son dos perros.
> 
> I know that in English you would tend to say: There are two dogs or Those are to dogs, wich for me in spanish that would be:
> Hay dos perros
> Esos son dos perros.
> 
> So wgat would be your thought?



The way that i imagine using this phrase "son dos perros" is as a response to a question, in which case i would have to say "they're two dogs." (one point of confusion for you could be that they're and there sound exactly alike for many English speakers.) "There" would only answer the question of how many, while "they're" answers the question of 'what are they'

Typically, a declarative sentence with "there" gives a signal to the listener that he/she is about to be made aware of the location or existence of something, whereas a typical "they are", "she is" construction presupposes the existence and instead describes the visual details.

An old dog lives behind the house
There is an old dog behind the house.

This second sentence makes us away of the existence whereas the first just describes.

I hope this helps, if you're still out there


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## jacinta

> "There" would only answer the question of how many, while "they're" answers the question of 'what are they'



Not so, alicatado.  I disagree.  *There* answers very nicely what there is, not how many.  

I believe this construction is much more common in Spanish than in 
English.  That´s why we are having problems coming up with translations.

What in the heck is making all that noise in the backyard. 
It´s the two dogs.
_The subject of this conversation is *what*, not two dogs; therefore we use it´s, referring to *what* is making the noise:  *it *is._
In Spanish it would be¨"*Son* los dos perros que están en el patio."

You could also say, "There are two dogs in the backyard" or just simply "There are dogs in the backyard."

Does this make any sense at all?


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## i heart queso

Basically, Tadeo, as you can see with all these English-speakers' confusion, I don't think there exists an equivalent in English.  As Jacinta was explaining, in Spanish you accord the verb with the subject ("son dos perros; son cinco días") whereas in English we don't always, and I think that might be part of the problem.  For example in Spanish you say: "Quién es?" "Soy yo". And in English: "Who is it?" "It's me."


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## le_sacre

Tadeo said:


> How many are we? We are five. This is how i would tend to answer.
> Is it wrong or just uncommon???



I think that it is perfectly correct, but (in the U.S., at least) extremely uncommon (I think most people would answer, "There are five of us.").



i heart queso said:


> For example in Spanish you say: "Quién es?" "Soy yo". And in English: "Who is it?" "It's me."



And just to add to I Heart Queso's point, the above, "It's me," is not technically correct, but extremely common (to the point that almost no one would use the correct, "It's I.").  In formal writing or in a very formal spoken sentence, you might use "It is I."  You might also (more commonly) say something like, "It was I who wanted the salad.  Jennifer wanted the soup."

I agree that this is a really interesting discussion.  I hope that someday (in the distant future) my Spanish might get to a point where I'll learn these sorts of "unwritten rules."


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## Tadeo

Wow!!!
I just realized that I never thanked you for your interest in this post.

My bad!!! Thank you so much to all of you.
You have been really helpful.


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## lunamia

Tadeo said:


> So, according to these, in common usage and/or everyday speech wich would be the answer?
> 
> "How many are we today [in our party]?" There are five of us. ¿?
> "How many were they?" More common: How many of them were there?There were .....
> 
> This a little bit confusing to me, because, as many other non-native speakers, I was taught to always answer a question with the same pronoun/axuxiliar thet it was done with, so:
> 
> How many are we? We are five. This is how i would tend to answer.
> Is it wrong or just uncommon??? Not wrong. More common is: How many do we have? We have five. How many are there of us? There are five (of us).
> 
> Very interesting, I think this is the kind of stuff that you don't learn at school. Ah yes, out in the real world, the best classroom.
> 
> Thanks for your interest again.


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## susantash

Creo que el problema es que a veces estamos muy acostumbrados a pensar en nuestro idioma nativo y no podemos advertir la diferencia con el el otro idioma. Creo que sería util hacer un "contrastive análisis"

A: What does the prize consist of?
B: It's five days at the beach.

Se utiliza el pronombre adecuado y un verbo concordante en nº y persona para sustituír al sujeto de la oración.


A: En que consiste el premio?
B: Son cinco días en la playa.

Aquí, como es común en español, el sujeto se omite; quedando solo el verbo, al que se hace concordar con el sustantivo inmediato, en vez del sujeto. 
Gramaticalmente nos olvidamos que estamos hablando del premio;`por eso para que no nos suene incorrecto ("es cinco días" suena raro, verdad?) hacemos coincidir el verbo con el sustantivo que le sigue.

Sin embargo, hasta donde yo sé, esto no sucede en inglés porque el sujeto siempre tiene que estar presente, y por eso no existe esa necesidad de concordancia con lo más próximo.

Espero que les haya aclarado el panorama!

Besitos!


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## i heart queso

Susantash's explanation sounds great to me.  I know that for me, presumably due to being native of English, I would naturally tend to say "es cinco días"...


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## sappy16

literalmente, es 'they are days', y 'they are cars', pero depende del contexto. en la primera oración, se puede decir 'there are five days left of our holiday' ('hay cinco días mas de nuestra vacación') pero si quieres decir 'estan a la playa por cinco días', es 'they are at the beach for five days'. 

en la segunda, es 'they are cars' ('son coches') o 'there are cars' ('hay coches') o 'there are five cars' ('hay cinco coches')


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