How to say "the people ran..."
La gente is used instead of the plural las gentes but do you use the singular or plural verb ending
La gente paseaban or La gente pasaba
4 Answers
La gente is singular, ie: La gente pasaba.
Yes it is confusing. The people, clearly a group, is singular. My vacation, clearly singular is plural, vacaciones. Go figure.
This is a problem for English speakers and for Spanish speakers, because "people" in English is always considered plural.
Spanish speakers learning English often make the mistake of saying, "The people is...
It is good to bring this up in the forum. For practice you might want to make up some sentences in Spanish using la gente and various verbs and tenses.
As Julian said the verb will be in the singular but the context and rest of the sentence will dictate which verb you will use and in which tense. Pasar is usually used for walking rather than running. What is your complete sentence?
