Questions & Answers about Ellas son niñas jóvenes y fuertes.
Why do we use Ellas here instead of Ellos?
Ellas is the feminine word for they. Because the sentence is specifically about a group of girls (niñas), we must use the feminine pronoun. If there were even one boy in the group, we would use the masculine Ellos. Could we leave out the word Ellas and just say Son niñas jóvenes y fuertes?
Yes! In Spanish, the verb son already tells us the subject is they. It is very common to drop the pronoun completely. Using Ellas here just adds a little extra emphasis or clarifies exactly who we are talking about. Why is the verb form son used instead of somos or sois?
The verb must match the subject. son is the form of the verb ser (to be) that goes with ellos and ellas (they). You would use somos if the sentence was about us (nosotros) and sois if it was about you all (vosotros). The sentence is about girls (niñas). Why don't the adjectives end in -as, like jóvenas or fuertas?
Not all adjectives change their spelling to match gender. Adjectives that end in -e (like the singular fuerte) or a consonant (like the singular joven) generally stay the exact same for both masculine and feminine nouns. We just add -s or -es to make them plural. Why does jóvenes have an accent mark when the singular word joven does not?
The singular word joven naturally places the spoken stress on the o. When we make it plural by adding -es, the word gets an extra syllable. To force the spoken emphasis to stay on that same o instead of shifting to the next syllable, Spanish requires a written accent mark. Learn Ellas son niñas jóvenes y fuertes and more in Spanish
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