Breakdown of La minoría tiene una tasa de menos de cien.
de
from / of
tener
to have
una
a, an (feminine)
cien
one hundred
menos
to (telling time) / minus / less
la minoría
the minority
la tasa
the rate (percentage, proportion)
Questions & Answers about La minoría tiene una tasa de menos de cien.
Why is it menos de cien and not menos que cien?
When you are talking about numbers or quantities, Spanish uses de instead of que to mean "than". Since cien is a number, "less than a hundred" becomes menos de cien. You use menos que when comparing nouns, adjectives, or adverbs (for example, Él es menos alto que yo - He is less tall than me).
Why do we use cien here instead of ciento?
You use cien when referring to exactly one hundred. Ciento is used when the number is between 101 and 199 (like ciento uno for 101) or when talking about percentages (por ciento).
What exactly does tasa mean in this context?
Tasa translates to "rate" in a statistical, financial, or measurable sense. You will commonly see it in phrases like tasa de interés (interest rate), tasa de desempleo (unemployment rate), or a general rate of occurrence like in this sentence.
Since minoría refers to a group of people, shouldn't the verb be plural (tienen)?
No, because minoría is a collective noun. Even though it describes a group of multiple things or people, the word itself is singular. In Spanish, singular collective nouns always take singular verbs, which is why we use tiene.
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