Learn Spanish (Latin America): Cien personas trabajan en un edificio grande. - One hundred people work in a big building.

Cien personas trabajan en un edificio grande.

One hundred people work in a big building.

Breakdown of Cien personas trabajan en un edificio grande.

Questions & Answers about Cien personas trabajan en un edificio grande.

Why is it cien personas and not ciento personas?

The number 100 is exactly cien. You only use ciento when the number is over 100, like ciento uno (101) or ciento diez (110). Since there are exactly 100 people here, we use cien.

Since personas is feminine, shouldn't it be cienas?

No, the word cien never changes to match the gender of the noun. It is always cien, whether you are talking about cien personas (feminine) or cien edificios (masculine). While the hundreds from 200 to 900 do change gender, like doscientas personas, 100 is special and stays exactly the same.

Why is it edificio grande and not grande edificio?

In Spanish, descriptive adjectives like grande (big) usually come after the noun they describe. If you put grande before a singular noun, it changes to gran and usually means 'great' rather than physically large. Because we mean physically big here, we use edificio grande.

Why does trabajan end in -an?