Breakdown of Ese grupo tiene menos de veinte personas.
de
from / of
tener
to have
ese
that (masculine)
la persona
person
veinte
twenty
menos
to (telling time) / minus / less
el grupo
the group
Questions & Answers about Ese grupo tiene menos de veinte personas.
Why is it "menos de" instead of "menos que" in this sentence?
When you are comparing things using a specific number (like veinte), you must use de instead of que. So, "fewer than twenty" translates to menos de veinte.
Why does the sentence use "Ese" instead of "Eso"?
Ese is the masculine singular word for "that" when it comes right before a masculine noun like grupo. You only use eso when you are talking about an abstract idea, a general situation, or an unknown object, and it never goes right next to a noun.
In English, we say "fewer than" for countable things like people, but "less than" for uncountable things like water. Does Spanish have two different words for this?
Since a group is made of multiple people, why do we use the singular verb "tiene" instead of "tienen"?
Even though a group contains many people, the word grupo itself is grammatically a single thing (a collective noun). Because it is just one group, it takes the singular verb tiene.
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