"Who are they?"
Translation:¿Quiénes son ellos?
114 Comments
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Quien is only used in singular form. If the subject is plural, quienes should be used
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I had son but looked a the suggestions and put ser which was then wrong, son was not even an option
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ecbauer- Sometimes, duo gives the verb at infinitive- it's up to you to use the correct conjugaison
I don't understand. How can "quienes son ellos" be wrong? Ellas is feminine and ellos, while masculine, is also used to describe both masculine and feminine mixed. This question isn't fair unless they specify that the "they" are female, right?
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You must chose both correct answers. Quienes son ellos y quienes son ellas.
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I got it as three answer choices, none of which were "quienes son ellos". If your exercise was to translate "who are they" and you responded "quienes son ellos" then DL should have accepted it.
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I wrote quienes son ellos and it was correct so they must have changed it. This may also be a learning lesson for Duo Lingo. We are not the only ones getting better here,
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I think you missed the accent mark. "Quienes" means "you want" whereas "Quiénes" (with the accent over the e) means to "who." Out loud they sound the same, but written they are different. This also applies to "que" and "qué."
Yeah I used Quienes son ellos? as the answer and it said it was wrong, BUT it was one of the CORRECT answer options! hahaha, makes no sense
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From what I understand, "Quién" is to be used when the answer is expected to be in the singular e.g. "Who eats fish? He does." "Quiénes" is to be used when the answer is expected to be in the plural e.g. "Who are they? They are men."
Nope. That would be like asking "who they?", which is grammatically incorrect. You CAN however just say "¿Quiénes son?" since you can drop the pronoun(ellos/ellas) in Spanish and son = "they are" or "are they?"
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What wenderen said is my understanding too. It appears that Spanish has a delineation between singular versus plural "who?" For singulars it uses "quién" whereas the plural seems to require the "-es" suffix
Why can it not also be ellas? I put both ellos and ellas and it marked it wrong.
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"Quiénes" is what must be paired with plural forms, therefore only option 3 is correct.
For it to accept it you have to click all that apply. So ellos and ellas would be the right answer
Why Quienes son ellos and not quienes ellos. When can the "son" element be left out
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Why would you leave out “son"? You can often leave out (imply) a pronoun in Spanish, but you need the verb.
So you could use just Quienes as a general who are they, implied by the conjugation, but would need "son" if you are being specific about gender "Quienes" = "Quienes son ellas" or "Quienes son ellos" and the same for all other verbs etc
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No. I'm sorry if that was unclear. Well, yes. Maybe. I'm not sure I understand your question. Quienes is who. So if you are just saying, "Who???" that's one thing. But in a normal sentence, quienes needs a verb. Who ARE they? Who ATE the bread? Who WALKED on the sidewalk? In this case, son/are is the verb. It is necessary. You don't leave verbs out. It is kind of the same as in English in this sense. You don't say, "Who they?" but "Who are they?" I hope that helps.
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You need a verb. In this case, the verb is "son" (ser). You can sometimes use the word order "quienes ellos": "a quienes ellos..." means "to those whom...". But again, this would immediately be followed by a verb. For this to mean anything, you need a verb. Otherwise, you are saying "Who(m) they" or "They who(m)".
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john- in your way, you're saying : Who they. Don't you think that the verb is missing? The verb can never be missing.
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You have to follow the three rules. Rule 1: if a word ends in n, s, or vowel and is stressed on the last syllable it needs an accent Mark. Ex: limón, jamás, mamá. Rule 2: if a word is stressed on the second to last syllable and it does not end in n, s, or a vowel, it needs a accent mark. Ex: difícil, inútil, cárcel and Rule 3:Every word stressed on the third to last syllable needs an accent mark. Ex: pájaro, propósito. Sometimes words need it for a specific meaning. Ex: tu tú, se sé, si sí, etc.
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If 'quien eres?' can mean 'who are you' then could you drop the 'ellas' from this sentence and still be understood?
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I see your point, DanScho. If Quien eres is correct, then why not Quienes son? Logically, the latter would mean who are they, without any indication of whether "they" are male or female or both. I hope some native can answer this.
I'm pretty sure you can drop the ellos/ellas but perhaps not.
Perhaps not because son is also used with "ustedes" so maybe it's a rule that when asking a question and the conjugation is shared by multiple pronouns, just to sound appropriate you need to include the actual pronoun?
I dunno... just thinking out loud here but If you were standing next to someone and pointed to a group of people across the room and asked your friend in english "who are y'all" that person would think "wtf? who are y'all? ... um? you hit your head bro?".
So in Spanish, since son can mean "are" for ellos/ellas AND "are" for ustedes, maybe it just sounds weird to them without the actual pronoun to make it clear that you're not a bumbling retard? lol
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Hucklebeary, what you say sounds logical to me. I forgot that the same verb form goes for both 2nd person and 3rd formal person.
sí. However, because son is shared by both forms of "they" (ellos y ellas) AND ustedes, if it's not absolutely clear who you're talking about, you'd want to include the pronoun in order to remove any ambiguity.
If it's clear from the conversation that the question would be intended to mean "they" or "you all" then sure, you can drop the ellos, ellas o ustedes and just say "¿Quiénes son?". Otherwise, include it.
So there is not an answer that says Quienes son ellos? I don't get why ellas is correct because my current spanish teacher says to use ellas only when referring to female and ellos can be used for both female and male. I would think the ellos would be a more correct version, but they don't list it for an answer.
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Why are you assuming that this question is asking anything other than what it is asking? “Who are they (those females)?" Nothing grammatically wrong with asking who those women are.
Um, 4 those of U that don't understand this, don't type "ser" for are. instead, type in "son," just like the basics. I typed in "ser" and got it wrong, but i got the "quien" part right
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This ser-son-soy is really getting the better of me. I thought I had established that soy was like the word am. I am - Yo soy... but now I'm not so sure.
Me, too. I guess soy = am, son= is/are, ser must be the unconjugated version= to be.
Because "son ellos" is "are they". Since it's "they", that means it's plural. Quiénes is required when asking "who" about plural subjects.
- "¿Quién es ella?" - Who is she? (she, singular. So this gets "quién?")
- "¿Quiénes son ellas?" - Who are they? (they, plural. So this gets "quiénes?")
¿comprende? :)
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Eres is (you) are. "Tú eres un niño" can be shortened to "Eres un niño" since "eres" is only ever used with "Tú" anyway.
So knowing that, "Quiénes eres ellos" would be "Who you are they?" :)
Every time i click on "are" it says "ser" is the word. I know its "son" but i keep trying "ser" anyway. Im getting questuons like this wrong because the help is wrong
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Take some time and learn when to use them rather than relying on the tooltips, and then you won't get them wrong any more :)
I had "son" but when i tapped on the word" are" it said "ser" then when i insert "ser" i got it wrong. Sigh.
Because that is a mish-mash of different conjugations and possessives that don't jive with each other.
quieresis the 2nd person conjugation ofquererso it means "you want",sonis the 3rd person plural conjugation ofserso it means "(they)are", andsuyois 3rd person singular long form possessive adjective (i.e. his, hers, yours).
So ¿Quieres son suyo? can translate to one of several possibilities. All of which are nonsensical lol.
¿Quieres son suyo?
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Do you want (they)are yours?
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Do you want (they)are hers?
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Do you want (they)are his?
If your typing of quieres was a mistake (and I'm pretty sure it was since you're at level 7) and you meant to type quiénes, then the only thing wrong is suyo which is the possessive adjective.
¿Quiénes son suyo? ... would translate to
- Who are yours?
- Who are his? or
- Who are hers?
hope that cleared it up :)
porque eres = tú, es no el verbo por ellos/ellas.
ellas/ellos = son
Sencillo :)
Esta pregunta esta mal.. corrige mal... primero puse masculino y ahora elegí femenino y me sale incorrecto nose q le pasa
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I think the problem is that Dl does not know that THEY is used for male and female Hahaha
when I submitted this answer it was wrong, but I looked at the right answer and it was what I put.
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Can someone tell me if somos is 'there are' or if quieres somos would be correct for who are they?
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It should say to select all correct answers. It's testing to make sure you understand both.
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Ellos being masculine should also be accepted along with ellas - when I chose both it marked it as wrong only ellas is correct???
Um i used ellos and got the wrong awnser. Wouldnt you use ellos? I mean would it really matter, cuz there was not a gender specification
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Is it asking you to select ALL correct answers? If so, you have to select both because both are correct.
Why is it quienes son ellas vs quienes son ellos? I was taught no specific gender automatically becomes masculine unless specified.
I put the right thing and it said it was wrong but then it said:Correct solutions ..................... but I put the right thing
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I assumed "Who are they?" would be referring to their name(s), and I got the question wrong when I translated it as "Como se llaman?"
In English, asking who someone is equates to asking for a name (I can't think of any other time we ask this question). Is "Quienes son ellos/ellas" a different question in Spanish?
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I answered "Quienen son ellos" and it was marked correct. However, the suggested form is "quienes...". Could someone explain the difference please?
Me:reads drop-down definition "Quienes verdad?" Computer: thinks for a while Computer: "you said 'Quienes son ellos?'" Me: Wow. -_- Nice going, Microphone.
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Why cant it be "Quiénes ellos"? And also, I thought if it was unsure the gender of the audience or crowd that the sentence be congegated in a masculine manner... any exception here?
Why is "Who are they?" translated to "¿Quiénes son ellos?" and not "¿Quiénes ellos son?" ?
once again the silly feminists are back at their mischievous antics. stupid women tut tut.
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when learning something new like a language at this early stage of the game, when they teach you son as meaning are as the plural, then that is what they should stick to in avoiding confusion. I havent even heard of ser and son wasnt there.
Quienes is the form 'you' isn't it? I am lost! I thought the other two must be correct because there's two but the subject is plural so it should be Quien, ahhhhhhh! please help
Quien isn't a verb so it's not conjugated, that's just what it is. They only added es to make it plural. Ser is your verb in this sentence, it's conjugated to son.