The Curious Way English and Spanish Approach Telling Time (It's 2/son las 2)
Note : If you are looking for a thorough review of how to tell time in Spanish, click here . Why do we say "es la una" (singular) and "son las dos" (plural) in Spanish, but say "it's one" , "it's two" (only singular) in English? I love questions like these because they get us to question why we say things the way we do in both the language we're learning, but as important, at least to me as a linguist, in our own language. The answer to this question is quite simple in Spanish. Number-gender agreement : es la una (hora implied - feminine singular), son las dos (horas implied - feminine plural). In the past tense, era la una or eran las dos. Question solved! More than likely, though, that didn't really solve the question. We're really wondering why Spanish respects number agreement with the verb to be , but English doesn't, at least in this case. The real issue, then, is to be found, not in Spanish, but in English!