Numerical Collective Nouns

Numerical collectives — nouns that represent a certain number of people of objects — are much more common in Spanish than in English.

Most of the English numerical collective nouns have equivalents in Spanish:

• a pair of shoes (un par de zapatos)
• a trio of stars (un trío de estrellas)
• a dozen roses (una docena de rosas)
• a score of neighbors (una veintena de vecinos)

But most of the Spanish collective numbers have no single-word English equivalent:

• Una decena de personas han muerto. (Ten people have died.)
• Una treintena de empresas vascas recibirán la certificación. (A group of 30 Basque businesses will receive certification.)
• Las donaciones de una cincuentena de países se acercan a los 4 mil millones de dólares. (Donations of 50 countries are approaching $4 billion.)
• Centenares de calamares gigantes han encallado en las playas de California. (Hundreds of giant squid have washed up on California beaches.)
• Más de un millar de personas debieron ser evacuadas. (More than 1,000 people had to be evacuated.)

Note that the collective nouns in Spanish, while they can refer to a group, often do not, at least not in a translatable way. In some cases, use of the numerical collective can indicate that the number is an approximation, just as the English "dozen" can sometimes indicate that a number is approximate. Thus, the third example above could probably be translated better as "about 50 countries."