birthday ends in -os and its not plural, why?
el cumpleaños end in –os. ¿Wouldn’t the –os be if you are celebrating 2 or more peoples birthdays making it los cumpleaños?
2 Answers
los cumpleaños is also correct.
this is a compound word, and its origin may be related to the fact that, except for the first year, you are afterwards always celebrating you reach more than one year of life, (2, 3, 4 and so on) and cumpleaño would be if you only reach one year of life each time.
there are some other words in singular ending in ´s´, like microondas, parabrisas, abrelatas, tragamonedas, sacabocados, aguafiestas...
mediterrunio is right.
I wanted to add an extra fact:
Cumpleaños is actually the combination of two words:
cumplir = to reach
años = years
Literally, the translation is not "birthday", but "reach years". Many things cannot be translated literally from Spanish to English, but it still makes perfect sense in Spanish!
