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What is the proper way of saying "The count of "something" can not be smaller than.."

"la cantidad de "something" no puede ser más pequeña que.." or is it " el recuento de "something" no puede ser inferior que.."

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The phrase I am trying to translate is:

"Min phone count can't be smaller than 0"

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  • I think that's going to be a difficult phrase to translate into Spanish. "My X count" is a bit of an idiomatic expression in English, and it doesn't have the same ring in Spanish. For example, "White blood cell count" and "triglyceride count" translate to "recuento de..." which isn't nearly as poetic.
    – Flimzy
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:40

3 Answers 3

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It truly depends on what are you counting and what do you want to express exactly. It may be "la cantidad", "el recuento", "la cuenta"... If you edit the Question or leave a comment with a more close approach, or even the exact phrase you are having doubts with, I would be able to improve the answer.

Anyway, the most common case will be "la cantidad". Both "más pequeña" and "inferior" may work correctly.

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  • "La cantidad de 'Min teléfonos' no puede ser inferior que 0" is correct?
    – user44579
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:07
  • I would dare and bet that you are translating software messages, and that "Min teléfonos" is the name of a field or variable. In that case I would use "El valor de "Min teléfonos" no puede ser <menor que|inferior a> 0" with a preference on the latter.
    – Envite
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:11
  • I was thinking of Valor, but couldn't wrap my head around the next phrase, if I was to use it and not something else > "El valor de ... debe ser un número válido"
    – user44579
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:27
  • You can avoid "valor" there. Simply "MyVariable debe ser un número válido".
    – Envite
    Commented May 15, 2014 at 18:36
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According to some latinamerican comunications companies, it would be best translated as:

"La cantidad de minutos {telefónicos/consumidos/ingresados} {no puede ser menor que/ debe ser mayor que} cero"

It could easily be understood the same way for spain, however might need to differ. The bolded alternatives would be more of universal spanish translations.

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  • It has nothing to do with minutes and the answer was chosen right away on the same day
    – user44579
    Commented May 17, 2014 at 19:41
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I think this is the simplest way to say it:

"La cantidad mínima (de minutos) es..."

Usually, phone companies here announce just the number of minutes, and differentiate between "controlled" lines (only those minutes) and "open" lines (they charge per second after that minimum)

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