Inconsistent conjugation?

Community-Created Courses Spanish (Latin-American/Mexican)
1

I have noticed quite a few inconsistencies regarding conjugation and I am hoping for a little clarification from the community. I’ll jump right into a couple of simple examples. For the record I am about halfway through level 3.

  1. These are my parents.
    The translation provided through memrise reads, ‘ellos son mis padres.’
    I would think the proper translation of ‘these are my parents’ would be ‘estos son mis padres.’
    I would think the proper translation of ‘ellos son mis padres’ would be ‘they are my parents.’

    Please help me to understand why they are correct and why I am wrong.

  2. Can I have the check, please?
    The translation provided through memrise reads, ‘¿me trae la cuenta, por favor?’
    I would think the proper translation of ‘Can I have the check, please?’ would be ‘¿me traes la
    cuenta, por favor?’

    Again, please help me to understand why they are correct and why I am wrong.

2

Hello @bigshrimp82 and welcome to the forum!

It’s unclear exactly what course you are referring to - there’s two Spanish courses for English speakers: “regular” Spanish and Mexican Spanish. Since you posted in the Latin-American section of the forum I would assume you are referring to Spanish (Mexican). There’s a forum thread dedicated to this course which you can find here. I would suggest to re-post your query there.

As for your questions: I would endorse your correction for “ellos son mis padres” - “estos” would be correct IMHO if translated with “they”.

RE “me trae la cuenta” - this is formal whereas “me traes la cuenta” would be informal, so the translation should be correct but the question might be better with " (formal)" appended.

I’ll tag @angileptol here - she’s Memrise’s Spanish specialist.