Breakdown of La estadística indica que la mayoría estaba trabajando.
estar
to be (location/state)
trabajar
to work
que
that / than
indicar
to indicate
Questions & Answers about La estadística indica que la mayoría estaba trabajando.
Why does the sentence use the singular estaba when 'the majority' implies many people?
In Spanish, collective nouns like la mayoría (the majority) or la gente (the people) are grammatically singular. Because the word mayoría is singular, the verb must also be singular (estaba), even though it refers to a group of people. In English, we often say 'the majority were', but Spanish keeps the grammar strictly singular here.
Why do we use the imperfect tense (estaba trabajando) instead of the preterite here?
The imperfect tense is used here because it describes an ongoing background action in the past with no specific beginning or end mentioned. The statistic is pointing out what was happening continuously at that time, making the imperfect estaba the natural choice for describing the ongoing situation.
Is estadística always singular? In English we often say 'statistics indicate'.
If I wanted to change this to say 'more than 50 people were working', how would that connect to my current lesson?