Thread: Ayuda traducción

Originally Posted by vicente

Either way you go is OK. You cannot say that either is wrong.

Here's my reasoning:

Example 1: I'd love to move away from the city but my wife loves it here; I like my job; and my doctor is here. Keeping my wife happy, staying with my job and being close to my doctor right now are all important to me and are the main reasons I cannot leave.

Example 2: We know that several factors influenced you to skip the seminar; the distance you'd have to travel, the dates, the schedule, the speakers, the topics to be discussed and possibly others. In order to better plan our next seminar but we'd like to know which of these were the main reasons you did not participate.

So there is not a main reason in these examples. They are simply put (important) reasons.

Originally Posted by vicente

There are several main reasons (of importance, which is one of the definitions of main).

Maybe this verbatim example from Merriam-Webster will help:

What are the main tourist attractions here? ¿Cuales son las atracciones turísticas principales aquí?



If you're still not convinced that there can be more than one main thing, google "main reasons".

"Many divorces fall into two main categories";
"Gottman offers research to support two main reasons and times for divorce";
"What were the main causes of World War I?";
"Essential Declarative:Analyze 5 main causes of the Great Depression";
"Main articles: Origins of the American Civil War";
"The three main causes of cancer are smoking, dietary imbalances (excess fat and calories; inadequate intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber, and calcium), and chronic infections"

...and on and on.

Understood..

Hi Guys!
I have asked a Spanish teacher about the issue of "razòn principal vs razones principales"
She told me that - at least in Spanish- it is grammatically better to use it in the singular.
¿Cuàl ha sido la razòn principal por la que no participaste?
It's in the answer that you might add more reasons if necessary.
She also added that the word "principal" lends itself for being used in the singular.
Anyway, nothing is black or white.
On the other hand Californian quoted some examples in the plural "5 main causes of the Great Depression";"two main reasons and times for divorce"