Something came up in school today that I need help with and since no one in my family speaks english and I'm far better at it than any of my friends or calssmates (the one subject I'm good at, really...) I'm turning to you english speaking subeteans for help ^^' I hope this is the right place for my question (if not, i apologize in advance ). We were supposed to translate a sentence from my mothertongue to english , the content was how to ask what kinds of people (very generally speaking) would visit italy on their holiday. my translation was : Who spends their vacation in italy? I was then told that this is wrong because of the 's' ending of spends which would only be correct if I used he, she or it. I know my basic grammar ,of course , but the question in my native language is gender neutral and the use of 'their' would definitly be preferable to the use of 'he' in that context. Also, my sentence just feels 'right' to me and I can usually go with my gut on these kinds of language questions >.< We're writing a test (the only written test this semester) next week and not being able to trust my feeling just really unsettles me so I'm trying to be thorough. I already googled the use of 'their' but it's kind of inconclusive ^^' Or maybe I'm just using the wrong phrases... Anyway , I'd be really happy if someone could clarify and explain this to me :-)

I'm not an English native speaker, but for my understanding you create questions with a form of "to do" or any similar auxiliary verb (like have/be). If you word the question differently, you could also get rid of the 's'. E.g. Which kind of people would spend their vacation in Italy?

Thank you for answering ^.^ Yes , you're right , of course. The problem is we were supposed to stay as close to the word to word translation as possible (probably should have mentioned that, sorry >.<) which pretty much excludes everything but my translation and ' Who spends his/her vacation/holiday in italy? ' and the former would be much closer to the word that was given. (My native language is german and the german sentence was : Wer verbringt seine Ferien in italien?)

Native speaker here.

'Who spend their vacation in Italy?' is DEFINITELY not correct. I can't give you all the fancy grammar reasons because I'm definitely not an English major, but 'Who spends' is more correct than 'Who spend'

However, there's also the variation of 'Who would spend their vacation in Italy?'

more info ^.^ thank you! ah, just so I get it right , 'who spends their (...) ? ' is correct? Absolutely. I would probably have gone with 'who would spend...' or zaphires sentence if I had had any kind of choice >.< the teacher is very strict and expects us to follow instructions pretty much to the letter...

You can tell your teacher that a native english speaker says 'Who spend' is incorrect, and 'Who spends' is :P. If it was past tense, it would be 'Who spent'.

Another native english speaker here; "Who spend their vacation" is incorrect, although I am also unable to articulate why :P I think I can understand why your teacher may say it's wrong, but I think they are putting the verb and "their" together, when the verb ("spend") actually goes with "who" in this sentence. But in a sentence such as "They eat their lunch," it would be "eat" instead of "eats" because the verb goes with "they" which is a plural pronoun, as opposed to "He eats his lunch," which would be a singular pronoun ("his"). I'm not sure if my explanation makes sense in a way that English grammar teachers would accept, but hopefully it helps some.

Your translation is almost certainly the most correct, looking at the original German. 'Their' is used a kind of gender neutral, singular, third-person pronoun, because saying 'his/her' all the time would be silly. And 'its' isn't used for people. And as it's singular in this case, we can use 'spends' like you would for he or she.

It may not be 100% official according to grammatical rules, but it's fairly widely accepted. Look, there's a whole wikipedia article on its use: [link]

Thank you , everyone ^.^ question answered! It's really important to me to get something like this right since I'm planning to study english once I graduate and I don't want to memorize any(more) wrong grammar or bad habits >.< I'd love to correct my teacher (this isn't the first mistake she's made ) but I'd probably go from an A to a D if I tried that... Knowing I can still trust my feeling though really helps ^.^ Thank you for the link volga, really useful :-) although I feel kind of stupid now, I really should have been able to find that on my own ^.^'''

I may be chiming in a little late here, but I just wanted to add that I use "their/they/them" as gender-neutral alternatives all the time. In fact, most people I know do the same, too. So, even though it might not be "officially" correct, native English speakers tend to accept it as if it were. =)

@ That's okay , I'm thankful for every last bit of info. Anecdote , personal opinion or textbook :-) I like using singular they/their etc. but since I'm neither a native speaker nor someone with an english degree I always want to make sure what I'm using is correct >.< I have a lot to learn and I'm still really far from speaking and writing as well as I would like and I feel like listening to and emulating native speakers will get me there faster than simply parroting my teacher or keeping to the book.

Your gut is right. Very few native English speakers reject "their" as the third-person gender-neutral singular anymore. A few decades ago, you would have said "his", but people finally realized that's stupid, since it's incorrect half of the time.

If you hadn't started your post saying as much, I wouldn't have been able to tell you aren't a native English speaker. That's an impressive feat - you should be really proud of yourself. =) Heck, I know I'd never be able to be that convincing using a second language, and I was made to study French for 12 years. Hahaha!

Yep, "Who spends their vacation in Italy?" would be correct. It's "spends" instead of "spend" because "who" is a singular pronoun in this sentence. Since English does not (yet) have a singular third-person pronoun, you'd use "their." "His or her" isn't really used in English, unless you're writing an essay for a class. Plus it excludes anyone of another gender, so "their" is both the most commonly used and the most neutral overall.

@ Oh wow, thank you , thank you, thank you (≧o≦) you just made my week! I try to immerse myself in the language as much as I can and I'm getting better , but I still have to think about my sentences way too much before I write them down and my accent is quite strong...but I'll get there eventually (°⌣°) I mean, that's the goal. French is beautiful. I wish I could have picked it instead of latin as my second foreign language.But at least I'll be halfway to learning spanish and italian with latin ^.^ Thank you and ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ I didn't know 'his or her' was that uncommon for that particular context , though it makes sense. 'Their' is much more inclusive which is why I like using it (although I would have tried to train myself to use 'his or her' if it had been 'more' correct ^^'')