"La mitad de la población tiene menos de quince años."
Translation:Half of the population is less than fifteen years old.
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Hola ryan.fleming: When you are speaking of the grand aspect of a subject (like "half of the population" or "world peace" or "college students" or "animals"), the article is used in Spanish, but not translated in English. More examples, "Men like football more than women" (note: In English, no articles), but in Spanish: "A los hombres les gustan el fútbol más que las mujeres".(note: in Spanish, the articles "los" and "las"). "Flies are insects" = "Las moscas son insectos".
Thank you isaacwisdom.
After making some search (I have done it after seeing your answer ) I have found out this link:
http://wps.ablongman.com/long_faigley_penguinhb_1/7/1979/506657.cw/index.html
Here is one of the things that is written their:
" Fractions modifying a collective noun can take either singular or plural:
Two thirds of the population of Lebanon is Muslim.
Two thirds of the population of Lebanon are Muslims "
So, I guess it is not about the word population, but about what is coming after it (if it is singular or plural ).
I am an American English speaker and "half the population is" is what is correct. Some people make mistakes and say are. Remember that it is one half and is therefore singular and the word population is also considered singular. The example of two thirds is considered plural, but since population is a word that is considered singular even though it contains many people(a collective noun), they have made an exception. I would never use singular with two thirds though. What comes after the verb "is" must agree with the subject which is two thirds. I would like to know who they are that made the exception.
977
Actually it is often considered a matter of regional emphasis on whether you want to push the half (eg, as a statistic) or concentrate on the objects. In Australia it is used both ways often but in other places one emphasis / or grammatical preference is chosen as ´standard´.
Jan 30, 1014. It depends on where you learned your English as a child. Americans would say is, looking at population as singular, British English might use are, looking at population as referring back to multiple people,. So are you learning British or American English? Written work would be corrected in America if are were used, probably the opposite in Britain, although I didn't go through that school system.
In my eyes (this might be wrong), it all depends on what the person saying it is thinking. For example, when one says "the team is winning", what he/she means is that the team is one entity, whereas if one would say "Real Madrid are winning", he/she would mean that all players on that team are winning. While the second might sound strange, and maybe these are not the best examples, I believe in some cases both ('is' and 'are') are correct.
977
¨half the population¨ would imply that a half (divided by age ) of the population is less than 15.
¨The half of the population¨ would imply a specific half that is already chosen also happens to be under the age of 15. You could also say ¨the half of the population THAT is under 15 years old...¨which would give you the same info but again already is specifically separated in a way that ¨half of the population¨is not
English uses "is or are fifteen years old"" instead of have or has.
It's just a difference in the language that you need to get used to. Word for word translation can help when you want to construct correct Spanish sentences, but you need to be aware that it isn't always the right way to say it in normal speech, and Duo only sometimes encourages word for word translation (I wish they never would)
Spanish also says "I have hunger " Tengo hambre instead of I am hungry, I have thirst (Tengo sed) instead of I am thirsty. Portuguese does the same thing, and German does it also with some expressions. There are a lot more of these, which you will learn as you go. (Spanish speakers ask the same thing in reverse) The rule is - "because that's the way they say it"
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Hello Nadia894618: When you speak about age in Spanish, people are said to "have [x] years". ¿Cuántos años tiene usted?- literally "how many years do you have?' English says "how old are you?"