Breakdown of En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y personas veganas.
Questions & Answers about En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y personas veganas.
Hay is the impersonal form of haber used to say “there is / there are”.
- En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas…
→ In my family there are vegetarian people…
You use hay + noun when you’re just stating that something exists or is present, without specifying exactly who they are in relation to you.
If you said:
En mi familia son vegetarianos.
This sounds incomplete in Spanish; you need a subject (who is “they”?):- En mi familia, algunos son vegetarianos. (Some [of them] are vegetarian.)
En mi familia están vegetarianos is wrong; estar isn’t used like “there are” in this way.
So:
- hay = there is / there are (existence)
- ser / estar = describe who/what someone is, or where/how they are, once the subject is clear.
In Spanish, after hay, it’s very common to omit the article when you’re talking about an indefinite, non-specific quantity:
- Hay personas vegetarianas…
= There are vegetarian people…
Adding unas is grammatically possible but changes the feel slightly:
- Hay unas personas vegetarianas…
Sounds more like: There are some (specific) vegetarian people… — you’re hinting at a more limited or specific group.
In your sentence you’re just describing the general composition of the family, so the bare plural personas (without article) is the most natural.
Because they must agree in gender and number with personas, which is:
- feminine
- plural
So:
- persona vegetariana / vegana (feminine singular)
- personas vegetarianas / veganas (feminine plural)
Even if some of those people are men, persona is grammatically feminine, so the adjectives follow the grammar of the noun, not the biological sex of the people.
Yes, very natural:
- En mi familia hay vegetarianos y veganos.
= In my family there are vegetarians and vegans.
Here, vegetarianos and veganos are being used as nouns, not adjectives. We don’t need personas.
Because we’re talking about a mixed or unspecified group, we use the masculine plural as the generic:
- vegetarianos = male vegetarians or a mixed group
- veganos = male vegans or a mixed group
This version is shorter and very common in everyday speech.
Both. They can work as:
Adjectives (describing a noun):
- personas vegetarianas (vegetarian people)
- comida vegana (vegan food)
Nouns (standing alone as “a vegetarian / a vegan”):
- Mi hermana es vegetariana. (My sister is a vegetarian.)
- Conozco a varios veganos. (I know several vegans.)
Your sentence uses them as adjectives describing personas.
You don’t have to repeat it. All of these are correct:
En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y veganas.
One personas, two adjectives. Very natural and slightly more compact.En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y personas veganas.
Repetition gives a bit more emphasis to the contrast, as if you’re separating the two groups more clearly.
So your original version is fine, but most natives would probably say it without repeating the noun in casual speech.
Yes, that’s also correct:
- En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y veganas.
- Hay personas vegetarianas y veganas en mi familia.
Meaning is the same. The difference is just focus:
- Starting with En mi familia… highlights the family first.
- Starting with Hay personas… highlights the existence of those people first, and only then says they’re in your family.
Both are natural; which you choose depends on what you want to emphasize in the wider context.
Yes, with a small change in agreement:
- En mi familia hay gente vegetariana y vegana.
Points to note:
- gente is grammatically singular and usually feminine.
- So adjectives agree as singular feminine:
- gente vegetariana (not vegetarianas)
- gente vegana (not veganas)
Matiz (nuance):
- personas sounds a bit more neutral / precise (literally “people, persons”).
- gente is more colloquial / collective, like “people” in English as a mass noun.
Both are fine in everyday speech.
You can use tengo, but it’s used differently:
En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y veganas.
Neutral description of how your family is composed.Tengo familiares vegetarianos y veganos.
= I have vegetarian and vegan relatives.
This focuses more on your relationship to them (that they are your relatives).
Tengo personas vegetarianas en mi familia is grammatically possible but a bit awkward; sounds like you “possess” some people. Using familiares (relatives) or a more specific noun is more idiomatic:
- Tengo primos vegetarianos. (I have vegetarian cousins.)
- Tengo varios familiares veganos.
Not in the same structure. Compare:
- En mi familia hay personas vegetarianas y veganas.
Literally: In my family there are vegetarian and vegan people.
If you use de mi familia, you need to change the structure:
- De mi familia, varios son vegetarianos.
= Of my family, several are vegetarian. / Several of my family members are vegetarian.
So:
- en mi familia hay… → “in my family there are…” (existence inside a group)
- de mi familia, X son… → “of my family, X are…” (taking something out of the group and describing them)
They’re both correct, but you can’t just swap en for de without adjusting the rest of the sentence.