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Tanto la hospitalidad como el servicio son excepcionales.

Tanto la hospitalidad como el servicio son excepcionales.
Both the hospitality and the service are exceptional.
From Lesson 363:Correlative conjunctions (no solo... sino también)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Tanto la hospitalidad como el servicio son excepcionales.

How does tanto... como... work here to mean 'both... and...'?
In this structure, tanto acts as 'both' and como acts as 'and'. While you might normally know tanto as 'so much' and como as 'like' or 'as', placing them around two nouns like this creates a fixed correlative pair that emphasizes both elements equally.
Why do we need the articles la and el? Could we just say Tanto hospitalidad como servicio?
No, you generally cannot drop the articles here. When linking nouns with tanto... como... in Spanish, each noun usually retains its required definite article (la and el), unlike English where we often drop them to just say 'Both hospitality and service'.
Since la hospitalidad and el servicio are singular, why are we using the plural verb son?
Even though the individual nouns are singular, linking them with tanto... como... creates a plural compound subject. Because you are talking about two distinct things together, the verb must be plural (son) and the adjective must match in the plural form (excepcionales).
Could I use y instead of como to say Tanto la hospitalidad y el servicio?
No, tanto must always pair with como in this grammatical structure. Translating the 'and' in 'both... and...' as y is a very common mistake for English speakers, but this specific Spanish expression strictly requires como.

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