Advanced Grammar, Chapter 1, Exercise 3, Question 9

The answer key says "fue" is the correct answer. I think it should be fueron. 9. Cuando yo tenía diez años, mi familia *fueron* a Disneyland. ¿Qué dices? Gracias, Greg

Hola Greg. I think the book is right. "Familia" is a singular noun, so it takes a singular verb. This is not very different from English usage. We often say "My family is large/growing/disfunctional" :D or "My family is coming to visit me next week." It's true that in English, one also hears "family" used as a plural noun, but in Spanish, I think it's always singular. An even more difficult word in this respect is "la gente" (people). In English, "people" usually takes a plural verb (e.g., in Spain, the people were very helpful to me), but in Spanish, "gente" is a singular noun and takes a singular verb.

That makes sense. Thank you for the swift reply! Greg