Breakdown of Hay trescientos niños y cuatrocientos estudiantes en la escuela.
el estudiante
the student
y
and
el niño
the boy
en
in / on / at
Questions & Answers about Hay trescientos niños y cuatrocientos estudiantes en la escuela.
Why do we say trescientos and cuatrocientos instead of just tres ciento and cuatro ciento?
Do numbers like trescientos change if I am talking about girls?
Why is it cuatrocientos estudiantes if the word estudiantes ends in an 'e'?
The word estudiante is used for both male and female students. When talking about a mixed group of students, Spanish defaults to the masculine form, so we use the masculine number cuatrocientos. If you were talking about an all-female group of students, you would say cuatrocientas estudiantes.
I see Hay at the beginning. Does it mean 'they have'?
No, hay means 'there is' or 'there are'. Even though it comes from a verb that looks similar to 'have' in English, it is only used to say that something exists. Here, it means 'there are'.