"They are girls and they have a book."

Translation: Ele sunt fete și ele au o carte.

[LOGH]

I see how the sentence was intended to catch the learner on "they" meaning both ei and ele; however, I should say that any English speaker would only understand the reference being to girls alone here. Hence, the question is unfairly written, I think.

[Ars_inveniendi]

Agreed, "the girls" is clearly the antecedent of "they" in this sentence.

[jasonbc123]

I agree with you. For an English speaker, if this was put into two sentences it would make much more sense "Ele sunt fete." "Ei au o carte." It's like two different thoughts combined into one. Hence why it's confusing for them to be marked wrong when the sentence first starts off as they being referred to girls and then having the sentence be continued in the masculine form of 'ei.'

[Sid331004]

Nonsense i disagree!

[AndrewPoiKel]

Why does the "they" change from feminine to masculine?

[jl45a]

how can both "Ele sunt fete și ele au o carte" and "Ele sunt fete și ei au o carte" be correct surely one refers to male and the other to female?

[jl45a]

would love an answer to this please, this is the second time I got this wrong on a multiple choice question

[jl45a]

third time and still no answer

[vievievie]

there are two groups. one group of boys and one group of girls. the boys have a book. so they (point at girls) are girls and they (point at boys) have a book. i agree it's daft, but i think it's normal in romanian

[jl45a]

oh, its referring to two different groups, that makes sense but its not really intuitive thanks

[vievievie]

I agree.

[PenguinCR7]

no

[jl45a]

why is not - ei sunt fete și ei au o carte?

[christie19J]

"Ei" is masculine. When you are talking only about girls in this case then you use "ele". If there are boys and girls you default to "ei".

[PenguinCR7]

Ei sunt fete shouldn't work

[lufloidio]

Ei, sunt masculini, {[Ei sunt copii și (ei) au o carte]. [They are boys and they have a book]]

Ele, sunt feminine, {[Ele sunt fete și (ele) au o carte]. [They are girls and they have a book]]
ele, it's feminine, they're girls

[Lady-D-Salt]

So why is "iar" wrong in this instance?

[lexbraescu]

The way it was explained to me is that "iar" only works in certain contexts. It more comparative than inclusive. So in this sentence it would be like saying "They are girls but also they have a book." Which doesn't make very much sense.

[Hichemmigu]

Normally we say/ Ele sunt fete şi ele au o carte, because here we have two girls no boys

[LouisSepdekdu]

Normally we use the pronoun that matches who we're talking about. Since there is no context to tell that we're only talking about girls, the ones who have the book could be boys.

[Fybaa_]

Wait... I am now in so much confusion... I answered "Ele sunt fete si ei au o carte." Firstly I was about to ask what the difference between Ele and ei is. I then see comments of it claiming ei is for masculine but the sentence was about two girls. Later on I look up and see that another translation of it is "Ele sunt fete si ele au o carte." Wow. S.O.S save our skin.

[LouisSepdekdu]

My guess is that the original sentence is in Romanian, with "ele" in each part of the sentence. That is translated as "they".

When that sentence is proposed in the opposite direction, here comes the problem, because English doesn't have distinct plural masculine and feminine pronouns. Are those two "they" the same group of people or two distinct groups? Is the first groupe feminine, masculine or mixed? What about the second group? All of this makes for four possible translations, with "ele" or "ei" possible translations for each "they".

I think the best way to translate that sentence to Romanian is to not put the subject pronoun. That way you keep the ambiguity from the English sentence.

[lale45147]

I tipped on the word and it showed ei so I have tipped ei but then it was wrong