La mayoría de la gente es simpática.

Question

I know it means "Most people are nice." But, I'm confused on the word for word translation. Can someone translate this as it is writtten. Thank you!

Answer 1

In English, at least, "majority" can be singular or plural, even though there is a pluralized form, "majorities"

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/majority.html

I think we need a native speaker to suggest if this is the same in Spanish.

If you search google for "La mayoría de la gente es" and for "La mayoría de la gente son" you will find 10 times as many results for es. To me, that suggests strongly that we should consider the likely correct one is:

La mayoría de la gente es simpática.

"La mayoría de las personas son" or "La mayoría de la gente es". - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

http://www.elnortedecastilla.es/20080920/cultura/concordancia-sensum-20080920.html - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

Answer 2

As far as the word for word translation goes:

The majority of the people are nice.

Just one little point though is that although 'la mayoría' 'the majority' is a singular noun the sense is plural so I think I would change the 'es' to 'son' and the simpática to simpáticas to match but I could be wrong.

Sorry, Kiwi. Gente is a singular noun, unlike in English. - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

I know it is Gintar (as I said above) but I still think that if it carries the sense of plurality you would use son not es :) But I have been known to get things wrong from time to time je je - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 13, 2011

http://www.mides.gub.uy/mides/colgado.jsp?contentid=12957&site=1&channel=mides - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 13, 2011

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. You mentioned that "la mayoría" was a singular noun. Nothing about "gente" being singular. - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

You said that the sense was plural, but it is not because "gente" is singular, therefore, the sense is singular. - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

ah I see what you're getting at, sorry, hmmm now you're making me doubt je je - yes ok then you're probably right but what about if you didn't have the 'gente' in there ? would you say la mayoría son simpáticas etc because of the sense of plurality - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 13, 2011

You can only use "son" if the implied noun is plural (e.g. la mayoría [de las mujeres] son) - gintar77, Jul 13, 2011

yep, that's what I was thinking but if you stick a singular noun in there there goes your chance of using the plural verb right! - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 13, 2011

gracias amigo! :) - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 13, 2011