Word
Quantes espelmes necessitem? En necessitem sis per al pastís.
Meaning
How many candles do we need? We need six for the cake.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Quantes espelmes necessitem? En necessitem sis per al pastís.
necessitar
to need
per a
for
en
of them
quant
how many
Questions & Answers about Quantes espelmes necessitem? En necessitem sis per al pastís.
Why does the sentence use quantes?
Because quantes means how many and it agrees with the noun it refers to.
Here the noun is espelmes (candles), which is feminine plural, so Catalan uses:
- quants for masculine plural
- quantes for feminine plural
So:
- Quantes espelmes...? = How many candles...?
This agreement is something English does not do with how many, but Catalan does.
What form is necessitem?
Necessitem is the 1st person plural present indicative of necessitar (to need).
So it means:
- necessitem = we need
A few related forms are:
- necessito = I need
- necessites = you need
- necessita = he/she/it needs
- necessitem = we need
- necessiteu = you all need
- necessiten = they need
In both sentences, the subject is we, even though Catalan does not need to state nosaltres.
Why isn’t we written in the sentence?