Breakdown of El equipo alimentará a las crías en cuanto tengan hambre.
las
the (feminine plural)
el equipo
the team
alimentar
to feed
en cuanto
as soon as
la cría
the baby animal
a
personal 'a' (marks a human direct object)
tener hambre
to be hungry
Questions & Answers about El equipo alimentará a las crías en cuanto tengan hambre.
Why is tengan used here instead of the normal present tense tienen?
The sentence uses en cuanto (as soon as) to talk about an event that hasn't happened yet: the animals getting hungry. When temporal phrases like cuando, en cuanto, or hasta que refer to a future, uncompleted action, Spanish requires the present subjunctive (tengan).
Why is there an a before las crías?
This is the personal a. Even though las crías (baby animals) aren't human, Spanish often uses the personal a before specific animals when they are the direct object of a verb, especially if they are pets, named animals, or animals receiving direct care from humans.
Why does the sentence use tengan hambre instead of a word for "are hungry"?
Since a team is made up of multiple people, why is the verb alimentará singular?
El equipo is a collective noun. Even though it describes a group of people, the word itself is singular. Spanish always treats singular collective nouns as grammatically singular, so it uses the third-person singular verb form alimentará.
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