Learn Spanish (Spain): El mes pasado contratamos a mucha gente.

El mes pasado contratamos a mucha gente.

Last month we hired many people.

Breakdown of El mes pasado contratamos a mucha gente.

mucho

a lot

personal a (marks a person object)

Questions & Answers about El mes pasado contratamos a mucha gente.

Why do we use contratamos (Past Simple) instead of hemos contratado (Present Perfect) here?

The phrase el mes pasado (last month) refers to a completely finished time period. In Spain, when the time frame is over, you must use the Past Simple (Pretérito indefinido). If the sentence was about an unfinished time period like este mes (this month), you would use hemos contratado.

Doesn't contratamos also mean "we hire" in the present tense?

Yes, it does! For regular -ar and -ir verbs, the nosotros (we) form is exactly the same in both the present tense and the Past Simple. You have to rely on context words like el mes pasado to know that the action happened in the past.

Why is there an a before mucha gente?

This is the personal a. In Spanish, whenever the direct object of an action is a person or a group of people, you must put an a right in front of it. Since we hired people, the a is required here.

"Many people" is plural in English, so why is it singular mucha gente here?

The word gente (people) is a singular feminine noun in Spanish. You can think of it like the word "crowd" or "population" in English. Because it acts as a singular noun, it must be paired with the singular feminine adjective mucha instead of the plural muchas.