Agree to Agree
Handle collectives, mixed-gender subjects, participles and hay without hesitating — out loud, mid-sentence.
Both are correct — collective nouns like la mayoría, la gente and el equipo take a singular verb by default, but plural agreement is accepted when you're emphasizing the members: la mayoría opina que la reforma ha sido un fracaso (the group as one), la mayoría de los asistentes son jóvenes (the people in it). Mixed-gender subjects default to masculine plural by convention: Juan y María están cansados. And hay is always singular no matter what follows — hay tres libros, había más de doscientas personas, never habían in careful speech. At &Be you don't drill these rules on worksheets — you use them in live spoken conversation until they're automatic.
Below: the sentences that carry each rule, where participles do and don't agree, the direct-to-indirect speech shifts — and a way to rehearse it all out loud with a teacher who talks back.
Say this
Regional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
Watch out
The part no drill site can do
Carla
Your grammar teacher for this pack
No flashcards, no fill-in-the-blanks. In the Agree to Agree lessons you talk, and Carla keeps setting agreement traps in real time: describe a group both ways — la mayoría es, then la mayoría son — and defend which feels more natural. Take se publicó el libro, pluralize the noun out loud, and feel the verb shift to se publicaron los libros. Then she hands you a quote — 'esto es mío' — and you recast it as reported speech, que aquello era suyo, deictics and all, in the moment, spoken.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 6 lessons and Agree to Agree is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
Both. Singular is the default and the safe formal choice: la mayoría opina que la reforma ha sido un fracaso. Plural is accepted when the members are in focus: la mayoría de los asistentes son jóvenes.
In careful Spanish, no — hay, había, hubo stay singular whatever follows: había más de doscientas personas en la sala. You will hear the plural in casual Caribbean and Venezuelan speech (habían como veinte personas), but it's censured in educated registers.
Masculine plural, by convention: Juan y María están cansados; los niños y las niñas fueron atendidos con el mismo cuidado. Masculine wins whenever the genders are mixed.
With haber it never changes: se han ido, han llegado. It does agree in the pasiva refleja — se construyeron las casas, se han inaugurado tres nuevas sedes — and as a complement: nos hemos visto obligados a suspender el acto.
More than the tense — demonstratives and possessives shift too: Me dijo: 'Estoy agotada' becomes me dijo que estaba agotada, and Dijo: 'esto es mío' becomes dijo que aquello era suyo. Commands move to the subjunctive: Gritaron que no firmáramos nada.
