Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): Muchas personas sobrevivieron porque los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital. - Many people survived because the doctors acted quickly at the hospital.

Muchas personas sobrevivieron porque los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital.

Many people survived because the doctors acted quickly at the hospital.

Breakdown of Muchas personas sobrevivieron porque los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital.

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Questions & Answers about Muchas personas sobrevivieron porque los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital.

Why is it muchas personas and not muchos personas?

In Spanish, adjectives (including mucho/mucha/muchos/muchas) must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify.

persona is a feminine singular noun → la persona
Its plural is personas → feminine plural

So we use the feminine plural form of mucho:

mucha persona (feminine singular)
muchas personas (feminine plural) ✔️

Muchos personas would be wrong because muchos is masculine plural, and it doesn’t match the feminine noun personas.

Why is sobrevivieron used (preterite) and not sobrevivían or han sobrevivido?

Sobrevivieron is the preterite (past simple) of sobrevivir for ellos/ellas/ustedes.

Preterite is used for completed actions in the past, seen as finished events.
→ Many people survived (event completed).

Alternatives and why they’re different:

sobrevivían (imperfect):
- Suggests an ongoing or habitual action in the past: they were surviving / used to survive.
- That’s not the meaning here; here it is a single, completed event.
han sobrevivido (present perfect):
- Many people have survived.
- This can sound like the results are still very present/relevant right now, and in Spain it’s often used for very recent past events.
- It wouldn’t be wrong in a different context, but the sentence as given sounds more like a narration of a past event, so sobrevivieron is the most natural choice.

Why do we say los médicos instead of just médicos?

The article los (the) is used because we’re referring to a specific group: the doctors involved in that situation.

los médicos actuaron rápido
→ the doctors (the ones at that hospital, in that situation) acted quickly.

If you say just médicos actuaron rápido, it sounds incomplete or very unnatural in Spanish; you almost always need an article or another determiner before a plural noun used as subject:

Los médicos actuaron rápido. ✔️
Algunos médicos actuaron rápido. (Some doctors acted quickly.) ✔️
Varios médicos actuaron rápido. (Several doctors acted quickly.) ✔️

So los médicos is the normal way to say the doctors in this context.

Could we say los doctores instead of los médicos? Is there a difference in Spain?

Yes, los doctores is grammatically correct, but there’s a nuance in Spain:

médico is the standard word for a medical doctor (profession).
doctor literally means “someone with a doctorate (PhD or similar)”, but in practice it is also used as a respectful form of address for physicians (especially Doctor + surname).

In everyday peninsular Spanish:

For the profession in general, people more often say médico/médica.
doctor/doctora is common too, especially in direct address:
- Doctor, me duele la cabeza.

So:

los médicos actuaron rápido sounds completely natural and neutral.
los doctores actuaron rápido is also possible, but médicos is more typical when you’re just naming the profession.

Why is rápido used instead of rápidamente? Are both correct?

Both are correct, but there’s a difference in style and frequency:

rápido here functions as an adverb: acted quickly.
rápidamente is the -mente adverb form: rapidly / quickly.

In modern spoken Spanish (including in Spain):

Using the adjective form as an adverb (like rápido) is very common and natural:
- Los médicos actuaron rápido. ✔️
rápidamente sounds a bit more formal or written-style:
- Los médicos actuaron rápidamente. ✔️ (correct, just slightly more formal/literary)

Meaning-wise, there’s no real difference here; it’s more about style and register.

If rápido is an adjective, why don’t we say rápidos to match los médicos?

Good observation. As an adjective, rápido would agree with the noun:

los médicos rápidos → the fast doctors (describing the doctors themselves)

But in this sentence, rápido is not describing the doctors; it’s describing how they acted (the verb actuaron). That makes it function as an adverb, and as an adverb:

It does not change for gender or number.

So:

Los médicos actuaron rápido. ✔️ (They acted quickly. — rápido = adverb)
Los médicos rápidos actuaron. ✔️ (The fast/quick doctors acted. — rápidos = adjective modifying médicos)

Different grammar role → different form.

What’s the difference between en el hospital and al hospital?

en el hospital = in/at the hospital (location inside or at the hospital).
- Los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital.
  → They acted quickly at/in the hospital.
al hospital = a + el hospital → to the hospital (movement towards the hospital).
- Llevaron a los heridos al hospital.
  → They took the wounded to the hospital.

So:

Use en el hospital for where something happens (location).
Use al hospital for where you go (direction/movement).

In this sentence, the action happens in the hospital, so en el hospital is correct.

Why is it en el hospital and not just en hospital?

In Spanish, you usually need a definite or indefinite article (or another determiner) before singular countable nouns:

el hospital (the hospital)
un hospital (a hospital)

So:

en el hospital = at the hospital (a specific one)
en un hospital = at a hospital (non-specific)

Unlike English, you normally can’t drop the article in this kind of sentence.
En hospital on its own is incorrect in standard Spanish.

Could we say mucha gente sobrevivió instead of muchas personas sobrevivieron?

Yes, that’s a very natural alternative:

Mucha gente sobrevivió porque los médicos actuaron rápido en el hospital.

Differences:

gente = collective noun (people, folks), singular grammatically:
- mucha gente sobrevivió (singular verb)
personas = regular plural noun:
- muchas personas sobrevivieron (plural verb)

Both are common and correct.
Stylistic feel:

mucha gente is very common in speech; a bit more informal, collective.
muchas personas sounds a bit more neutral/formal, slightly more “countable/individualised”.

The meaning is essentially the same here.

Is there any difference between porque and por que? Why is it porque here?

Yes, porque and por que are different.

porque (one word) = because (introduces a reason or cause).
- Sobrevivieron porque los médicos actuaron rápido.
  → They survived because the doctors acted quickly. ✔️
por que (two words) can appear in other structures, for example:
- after certain verbs/prepositions:
  - No entiendo por qué lo hizo. (I don’t understand why he did it.)
  - Here por
    - qué (question word).
- in some fixed expressions, or in combinations with lo (e.g. por lo que).

In our sentence, we are expressing cause (“because”), so porque (one word) is the correct form.

Why is actuaron used instead of something like reaccionaron or intervinieron? What exactly does actuar mean here?

In Spanish, actuar has several meanings:

To act (as an actor) → theatre, films.
To take action, do something, intervene in a situation.

In this sentence it has meaning 2:

Los médicos actuaron rápido
→ The doctors took action quickly / intervened quickly.

You could also say:

Los médicos reaccionaron rápido. (They reacted quickly.)
Los médicos intervinieron rápido. (They intervened quickly.)

These are all correct but have slightly different nuances:

actuar is quite general: to take the necessary actions.
reaccionar emphasizes responding to something that happened.
intervenir often suggests getting involved actively, maybe in a more technical or official way.

The choice of actuaron just gives a general sense that they did what needed to be done, and they did it quickly.

Why do we use the past simple (preterite) for both verbs: sobrevivieron and actuaron? Could one of them be in another tense?

Both sobrevivieron and actuaron are in the preterite, which is typical when telling a completed past event with a clear cause–effect relation:

Muchas personas sobrevivieron (completed result)
porque los médicos actuaron rápido (completed cause)

Keeping both in the preterite shows that:

The doctors acted (completed action).
As a consequence, the people survived (completed result).

You could change the tense for different effects, but the meaning changes:

Muchas personas han sobrevivido porque los médicos actuaron rápido.
→ Many people have survived because the doctors acted quickly.
→ Focus slightly more on the current result of surviving.
Muchas personas sobrevivían porque los médicos actuaban rápido.
→ Many people survived / used to survive because the doctors used to act quickly.
→ Sounds habitual or repetitive in the past, not about one specific event.

For the one specific past incident implied by the sentence, using preterite for both is the most natural.