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- "Our elephants are not white."
"Our elephants are not white."
Translation:Nuestros elefantes no son blancos.
17 Comments
interesting, so if the noun is plural, I have to make the color plural as well?
So, I wanted to write it as a female elephant; nuestras elefantas no son blancas. But it was wrong? Is elephant only a male noun?
Elefante is a unisex noun because it ends in "e"not "o"or "a" there the words around it will become the opposite gender not the actual word. Examples: Nuestras elefantes no son blancas or Nuestos elefantes no son blancos.
Since the male is elefante and not elefanto, maybe it can be written "nuestras elefantes no son blancas" without change elefante? Maybe. I don't know.
nosotros is a subject pronoun corresponding to the English "we". In Spanish, it can include a group of males or a mixed group of females and males. If "we" are all females, we would use nosotras.
nuestro/nuestra/nuestros/nuestras aré possessive adjectives corresponding to the English "our".
In English, we have only one "our", just as we have only one "red". We can have a red book or a red shirt or red shoes or red tables. But in Spanish, the adjectives must agree with the nouns they are modifying/describing. Thus we have libro rojo, camisa roja, zapatos rojos, mesas rojas: four different words for red.
The same with "our" -- remember it is an adjective and must match the noun it modifies/describes, not the subject of the sentence: nuestro libro, nuestra camisa, nuestros zapatos, nuestras mesas. It doesn't matter whether these items are owned by males or females; this is about grammatical gender of the noun.
[Not to over-complicate things, but because it will come up, I should add that nuestro/nuestra/nuestros/nuestras are also possessive pronouns corresponding to the English "ours":
Q: "Whose books are these." = De quién son estos libros?
A: "Ours" --> Nuestros]
How come when i get one wrong it shows me the same thing I haved typed and not show me the right way that is spelled? Or am i not understanding?
Grr, elephants have gender too... this gender thing is the most frustrating part of learning Spanish. Things have gender, animals have genders seemingly randomly (some do some don't), colors have genders randomly (some do some don't).
Anyway, was not taught elefantas before this. It just randomly popped up in Strengthen Skills part without it being in any lesson..
Can someone help me with why it can't be "Los elefantes de nuestros no son blancos"?
