"He and she are siblings."

Translation: Él y ella son hermanos.

[vwlj]

600 women and 1 man - you still use the masc. 601 women and no men, use the fem.

[tink38570]

Earlier in the lesson they used e for and. I had never heard of e for and used before but thought perhaps they were interchangeable. I even hovered over and to see what it said and e was listed so that's what I used. Why would it be wrong?

[vicentillo013]

Pandora is partially right. You use E to avoid cacophony or the repetition of sounds: "hijo y hija" doesn´t sound well and you can´t differentiate the "y", so it sounds like "son -, daughter", instead of "son and daughter". As a rule you use "E" when the next word starts with an I. For example: "Es un hombre poderoso E invencible" (He is a powerful and invincible man). "Es honesto E incorruptible" (He is honest and incorruptible). And finally, remeber that, in some cases the H is mute, like in Hijo/hija, so the first sound is that of an I and thats the reason you sholud use E instead of Y.
In the sentence used in this example: Él y ella son hermanos you don´t use E for the same reason: "El E Ella" doesn´t sounds right, you are repeating the E so, you use Y.

[medfordtim]

Then the earlier instructions shouldn't have told us that "e" is used when there is a vowel - which IS what was said. Next version, I want vicentillo013 and PandoraLynn to write the explanations so they makes sense. :-)

[PandoraLynn]

In my understanding, "e" is used only to make the sentence flow. For example between "hijo e hija" because if you used "y" you would be tripping over your tongue. So, I guess as a rule when you see "hi___" use "e" and anything else use "y".

[wilsondevilla]

When do we use "e" and "y" ?

[Irmeli2]

you use "e" when the next word starts with an "i" or a "hi"

[ThomasBouverie.1]

Why would you use the masculine plural since there are two different genders here?

[rspreng]

That's the rule. Mixed groups = masculine endings on verbs, nouns, pronouns,etc.

[ThomasBouverie.1]

cheers

[YaBoiTyla]

Men always are more powerful even if its one male and 100 females in a room you use masculine endings thats how i remember it or well thats the rule my profesora used

[ciroaugusto]

How in this sentence using "hermanos" is good and "ellos" is not? Like "Ellos son hermanos." If the gender is unknown and "hermano" is a male word, why it is correct to use the word?

[malamado_419]

Why can I not say "El y ella son hermano y hermana?" As in "they are brother and sister?" This does equate to siblings.

[krysti07]

So wrong