El público pidió un bis.

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Breakdown of El público pidió un bis.

• pedir: to ask for
• el público: the public
• el bis: the encore

Questions & Answers about El público pidió un bis.

Why is el público singular if it refers to lots of people?

Because público here is a collective noun. It means the audience or the crowd as one group, so Spanish treats it as grammatically singular.

That is why the verb is singular too:

• El público pidió... = The audience asked...

Even though many people are involved, Spanish sees them as one unit in this sentence.

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What does pidió mean, and what verb does it come from?

Pidió comes from the verb pedir, meaning to ask for or to request.

Here, pidió is:

• third person singular
• preterite
• so it means he/she/it asked for or, in this sentence, the audience asked for

Because the subject is el público, the translation is:

• El público pidió = The audience asked for

A few useful forms of pedir in the preterite are:

• yo pedí
• tú pediste
• él/ella/usted pidió
• nosotros pedimos
• vosotros pedisteis
• ellos/ellas/ustedes pidieron

Notice the stem change e → i in some forms:

• pidió
• pidieron

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Why is pidió used instead of pedía?