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- "La mitad de la población tie…
"La mitad de la población tiene menos de quince años."
Translation:Half of the population is less than fifteen years old.
37 Comments
In Spanish, you can't say "Mitad de la población...", in the same way you can't say "Niños corren" (for "Boys run"). Whereas in English it is possible to remove the article, in Spanish it's not.
Are there any specific tricks or tips for when the article is needed and when it's not?
when talking about a person's/peoples' profession(s) (I know estudiante is included and there might be other "jobs" that follow this rule that may not seem like jobs.) they aren't required as far as I know. "estoy estudiante" "eres doctor", "son cocineros"
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".
I have a question for the English native speakers:
'Half of the population are less than fifteen years old'.
Can it be also a correct sentence?
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 ).
Although I'm not an English native speaker, I think this is correct. You can say either half the population "is" or "are", just like you can say "my family is very happy to meet you", or "my family are very happy to meet you".
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.
It isn't an error. It's a dialect difference. Listen to broadcasters from areas that use a more British dialect. Many collective nouns (family, team, population, town when referring to the people in it, ,,,) use are in those dialects. THEY think WE are wrong.
This must be something that varies by region. To me, "half of the population are..." sounds unnatural.
It's definitely regional. I think British English when I hear (most) singular collective nouns paired with are, (family are, team are, population are) just sounds wrong to me, but I hear and read it all the time from native English speakers with dialects different than midwestern English.
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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´.
"Population" is not the subject. It is the object of the preposition "of" Half is the subject, since it is one half it is considered to be singular.
If the group is doing something collectively, you treat is as singular. If the group has a bunch of members each doing individual things, you treat it as plural. That's basically what I was taught.
Hola itay_bi: There is some debate about this. Some say "are", some say "is". To me, "is" sounds better, but I am not going to worry about it. Not that important. I'm moving on to the next sentence. CHAU
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.
I wrote "THE half of the population is less than fifteen years old". The app doesn't accept it. Is it really wrong here if I use the definite article?
It's not completely wrong, there are dialects that use it occasionally, but it certainly is VERY uncommon.. We usually don't use the with half unless we are referring to a specific half - like What happened to the half of the pie that I left in the refrigerator?
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¨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
I thought the way "less than" was said in spanish is "menos que" not "menos de." Why the change here?
Hola eshewan: You are correct that in many cases "menos que" is correct...EXCEPT when dealing with numbers. With numbers, it is "menos de". Chau.
Why is "Half of the population have less than fifteen years" wrong? or what is the "is" or "are" translated from in the sentence, why is "tiene" used instead of es or son
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?"
