Word
Una minoría de los miembros de la comunidad escribe un comentario.
Meaning
A minority of community members writes a comment.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Una minoría de los miembros de la comunidad escribe un comentario.
de
from / of
un
a, an (masculine)
una
a, an (feminine)
los
the (masculine plural)
Questions & Answers about Una minoría de los miembros de la comunidad escribe un comentario.
Why is the verb escribe in the singular when "the members" are plural? Could I use escriben?
The verb escribe is singular because it agrees grammatically with the singular noun una minoría (a minority). However, because the sentence means multiple people are writing, using the plural escriben to agree with los miembros is also perfectly correct! This is called agreement by meaning. You will hear native speakers use both forms interchangeably.
English says "community members", but the Spanish sentence uses los miembros de la comunidad. Why not just los comunidad miembros?
Unlike English, Spanish doesn't let you use a noun like an adjective by putting it directly in front of another noun. To say "community members," you have to link them with the preposition de, literally saying "the members of the community" (los miembros de la comunidad).
Why do we need los before miembros? Couldn't we just say una minoría de miembros?
You actually could say una minoría de miembros if you meant "a minority of members" in a very general, non-specific sense. But because this sentence talks about a specific, defined group (the members of the community), Spanish prefers the definite article los to show that we know exactly which members we mean.
Is comunidad always feminine?