The sentences are incorrect:

Los escucha la gente (the people listen to them)

I don't know what you mean by "donadores"

La escucha la gente: the people listen to her.

i'm talking about politics, so i'm saying politicians listen, which is why it is escuchan. they listen to (them) the people. so would them be los as is los escuchan or la because it is la gente?

thanks for replying

donadores means donor, i got it from a native speaker

You want to say:

Escuchen a la gente, y no a los donadores/donantes.

You don't need a pronoun in the first clause.

Hi whit:

donadores is not the absolutely correct word: it should be : donantes

If I am understanding:

politicians listen to the people:

(ellos) los escuchan

Ellos escuchan a la gente

Please, give us your English sentence and we will understand better.

Donadores may not be used in Spain, but it is used elsewhere. See the following for an example.

http://amigosmsc.org/donations.htm

Whit is trying to say: Politicians, listen to the people, and not your donors! (mandato)

Donadores may not be used in Spain, but it is used elsewhere. See the following for an example.

This is true, James, but that doesn't make if more correct. You will not find this word in the dictionary.

Whit is trying to say: Politicians, listen to the people, and not your donors! (mandato)

Are you whit? I don't think so.

Actually, I do find donador in my dictionary. Just double click on donador and you'll get the definition from the dictionary of this website, too.

And why so cross? I was only telling you what Whit already said: "so i'm saying politicians listen"

ok, good discussion. and the tricky part with spanish is that it's used so differently in different places. i am reaching out to a mexican audience, with perhaps a few central americans. the literature i have used written by mexican-americans uses donadores, though i know donantes exists too. once, i met a boy in peru who didn't know the word "zapatos" for shoes and he was about 10. though, i'm not writing a command, it's more a bullet point. you know how in spanish they use so much more reflexives, i thought i would throw it in there, but i'll just leave it as escuchan la gente y no los donadores. any objections to that'

No objections at all, if that is what you want to say. It means "They (or you plural) listen to the people and not the donors." Is that it?

I may be off here, but I sense that you are thinking of this:

' Listen to the people, and not the donors

In this case, "listen" could be a command, or it could be an ellipsis of "they listen," so it is vague in English. The problem is that in Spanish you have to decide one way or the other, because the conjugation changes. You could use "escuchar" and just leave it as a noun phrase ("Listening to..."), but that may not be what you want.

HTH

This isn't an objection to the message, but the spanish structure which would be:
"Los políticos escuchen/escuchan a la gente y no a los donadores".
Los políticos escuchen/ escuchan la gente y no los donadores, says that the first listen, but the donors do not.

aha, that's interesting. so, is that still true if it's a bullet point and not a complete sentence? so the heading is Elecciones Limpios Sirven! (please correct if not right) and then the bullet point is in english, "candidates spend their time listening to voters not big donors." Anyone who wants to correctly translate would have my utter appreciation, if this is making any sense. thanks!

Los políticos escuchan a la gente.

"Escuchen" is subjunctive and it doesn't apply here.

Los políticos escuchan a la gente (the pay attention to the people = politicians listen and people is listened)

Whit, this is getting really complicated as we are simply guessing what you want to say. Please, post your sentence in English and then we will see.

James, I am not cross, I am simply stating that we do not use the word donador. You will not find it in the Rae (I should have added that) which I consider always mandatory.
nevertheless I can see it is often used in American countries, so it might be better understood, too, so I would go for donadores too.

Sorry, whit, I just saw you actually did give the sentence.

candidates spend their time listening to voters not big donors.

Spanish:

Los candidatos se pasan el tiempo escuchando a los votantes y no a los donadores (Spain: donantes)

There you are, James, in the end it was not a command...(guiño)

ok, one more question. i thought in spanish class they drilled it into us that "escuchar" means to listen to, and therefore you never use "a" afterward because it's already included in escuchar.