Is it nos limpie or nos limpiemos?

Question

I'm trying to say this in Spanish:

The animals are going to die unless we clean the river..

Here is my crack at it:

Los animales van a morir a menos que nos limpie el río.

I'm not sure whether or not nos limpie is correct since the "a menos que" makes the sentence a conjunction which may change rules.

In case you were wondering, the objective is to caption a cartoon, which is of two cows, who are standing in front of a contaminated river, that are in quite bad shape.

Answer 1

I would say, "Los animales van a morir a menos que limpiemos el río." You don't need the nos, but you do need the 1st person plural conjugation.

Does it matter that the act of cleaning is being done on the river? - Harman_M, Oct 22, 2010

no- if you were saying 'the animals are going to die unless we clean it" then you would say "los animales van a morir a menos que lo limpiemos" with the pronoun as "lo" for the river - lovlee1893, Oct 22, 2010

Thanks! - Harman_M, Oct 22, 2010

Answer 2

KevinB dijo: I would say, "Los animales van a morir a menos que limpiemos el río." You don't need the nos, but you do need the 1st person plural conjugation.

I think it's worse than a case of "not needing the nos".

In "nos limpie el río" the river is apparently the one doing the cleaning, and it's cleaning us!

Kevin's sentence is great.

What's so bad about being cleaned by a contaminated river? - Harman_M, Oct 22, 2010

Yes. Nos isn't just not needed, it's wrong, and nos limpie is completely backwards, plus it sounds unpleasant. :-) - KevinB, Oct 22, 2010