Learn Spanish (Spain): ¿Sois vosotros los médicos?

¿Sois vosotros los médicos?

Are you the doctors?

Breakdown of ¿Sois vosotros los médicos?

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Questions & Answers about ¿Sois vosotros los médicos?

Why is the verb sois before the subject vosotros?

In Spanish yes/no questions, it is very common to switch the order of the subject and the verb. Instead of the standard statement order (Vosotros sois los médicos), the verb is moved to the front to form the question (¿Sois vosotros los médicos?).

Do I have to include vosotros, or could I just say ¿Sois los médicos?

You can definitely just drop the pronoun and ask ¿Sois los médicos? Because the verb sois can only possibly mean "you all are," the pronoun is optional. It is included here to clearly show the inverted word order of the question, or it could be used in real life for emphasis, like asking "Are you the doctors?"

I have learned to use ustedes for "you plural". Why use vosotros here?

In Spain, vosotros is the standard informal word for "you all." You use it when talking to a group of friends, peers, or people you are on a first-name basis with. If you were speaking formally to a group of doctors you do not know well, you would use ustedes and ask ¿Son ustedes los médicos?

How would this sentence change if all the doctors we are talking to are women?

You would change the pronoun, the article, and the noun to their feminine forms: ¿Sois vosotras las médicas? Remember that if the group of doctors contains a mix of men and women, Spanish defaults to the masculine forms (vosotros and los médicos).