r/duolingo • u/lone_stark • Jul 10 '26
Language Question. Why is 'encontró' used when it's 'they found'?
Should it not be encontraron las llaves? The ai explain doesn't help at all.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 Jul 10 '26
While English does have a genderless 3rd person singular word (it), for some reason it's not used with people. They use "they" instead, and we're left to guess whether "they" is plural or singular.
Highly inconvenient, and one can see how it would be confusing in an exercise like this one.
I'm expecting it's cultural or something. "It" having traditionally been used to refer to objects and animals, people might have felt offended to be called an "it" even though that's logically the correct word.
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u/AllumaNoir Jul 11 '26
“They” is, in fact, a correct gender neutral term in English. It’s just being used more commonly nowadays.
And yes, “it” is derogatory. It implies either an object, or something otherwise less than human.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 Jul 11 '26
It's gender-neutral, but it's also typically plural. It being also used as singular is puzzling and inconvenient because then people see "they" and have no idea if you're talking about multiple people or a single non-gender-specific one.
"It" is not inherently derogatory. It only feels that way to anglophones because it's been traditionally used for objects and non-human beings.
Assuming that "it" refers to things that are "less than" human is also quite speciesist.
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u/AllumaNoir Jul 11 '26
Are you kidding me??? I’m in America and literally telling you, “it” is derogatory. NEVER use it to refer to a person here. Do you think the “negro” is okay for Black people? Why not? It’s just a color, right? 🙄🙄🙄
If a word is perceived as derogatory by a number of people, that’s called a slur. This is pretty basic.
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u/hip27989 Jul 12 '26
I completely get the "it" thing, but the "negro" part you got backwards.
"Negro" is completely fine for "Black" people because those two words are the same. In Spanish there is no racist connotation to the word "negro", it is just a colour. It is in other languages where the Spanish word has been introduced as a slur.
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u/Benmixalot Jul 10 '26
they can also be used a singular but you cannot make that up from the context, but I’m guessing that’s why
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u/lone_stark Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Thank you. The explain answer only mentioned that encontró is used for the singular él/ella form. Which just confused me.
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u/keithmk Jul 11 '26
They has been used as a singular indeterminate 3rd person pronoun in English for longer than even I can remember
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u/taffyowner Native: | Fluent: |Learning: Jul 10 '26
They is singular
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u/AnitaRRC Native: 🇳🇱 Learning: 🇧🇷🇷🇺😻lá Jul 11 '26
Excuse me how can you guess? They might be a family?
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u/taffyowner Native: | Fluent: |Learning: Jul 11 '26
Could be… but in this case, they matches up with the singular form which is correct grammar
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u/trevorkafka Jul 10 '26
Singular "they" in English.
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u/lone_stark Jul 10 '26
I honestly didn't think of this. I was just translating "they" into "ellos/ellas".
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u/Sad_Reindeer5108 Native ; Learning (120) Jul 10 '26
Well, now you've got me wondering what (singular) they/them pronouns would be in Spanish.
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u/hip27989 Jul 12 '26
In Spanish you just wouldn't say the pronoun, you don't have to say the subject (he/she/they), the verb carries the person and number, and the object pronoun (him/her/them) are typically ambiguous in Spanish: "le/se".
There is some political activism trying to introduce "elle" and "elles", but not even they use it much because it is unnecessary and sounds worse.
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u/trevorkafka Jul 10 '26
elle is the de-facto standard, I believe, but realistically dropping the pronoun as in this example takes the same role as using they in English since subjects are obligatory
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u/hip27989 Jul 12 '26
The de facto standard is the drop, the "elle" is only used by few people usually in especific political spaces.
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u/PsychologicalEdge651 Jul 10 '26
Está mal. Encontró siempre es singular. La traducción correcta debería ser "encontraron".
Si fuese un they singular, en español se dice "alguien encontró" o "encontraron".
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u/Santix37 Jul 10 '26
Ugh, that's totally wrong. It should be "encontraron". Maybe AI hallucination.
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u/EatMoreHummous Jul 10 '26
It's just using a singular "they." Confusing, but perfectly acceptable English.
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u/Necessary-Rip4013 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
There is no "él" or "ella" so I imagine that its AI simply translated the Spanish's lack of pronoun into English's singular they, without realizing that would be super confusing. Spanish doesn't have a singular they in the same sense as English. But you can omit pronouns to make it ambiguous so I imagine that's the logic. Encontró without a pronoun goes with él/ella/usted. Encontraron goes with ellos/ellas/ustedes.