I thought you could say something like this:
We were having dinner in our three-people apartment.
(We are the three people who live in the apartment.)
But Google doesn't yield results for three-people apartment.
What's the correct way of saying it?
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1Three-person apartment? We don't usually pluralize the noun in compound adjectives.– Teacher KSHuangFeb 14, 2017 at 10:41
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And I probably would've used "'in' our three-person apartment," if I had only been intending to indicate the location of our dinner.– Teacher KSHuangFeb 14, 2017 at 12:03
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3 Answers
I'm going to summarize the answers given so far.
The more important point: in English, We don't usually pluralize the noun in compound adjectives. So
- six-foot ruler
- Three-Dog Night
- four-door car.
Less important, in most English-speaking countries, housing units are characterized by the number of bedrooms they have: it's a three-bedroom apartment, a four-bedroom house. How many people you put in each bedroom is up to you.
Auditoriums and vehicles of land and air are characterized by the number of seats they have -- a two-seat sports-car, a 100-seat jet, a thousand-seat theater -- even though you can only put one person in a seat.
Only tasks, small watercraft, and for some reason tents are characterized by the number of people they hold: a one-person job, a three-man canoe, a two-person pup-tent.
You can say "We were having dinner at our apartment. We live there on a triple sharing basis" or "We were having dinner at our triple room in the apartment".
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2Neither "triple sharing basis" or "triple room" is something that this US English speaker would understand.– stangdonFeb 14, 2017 at 13:11
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This BritEnglish thinks "having dinner at our triple room" means the three of you share a bedroom and were eating your dinner there. Watch out for the crumbs! Mar 22, 2017 at 19:57
The three of us are having a dinner party at our apartment.
"Three-person" might be correct, but I would not expect to hear this as an expression in normal conversation. "Three-person IVF" is the only time I've ever heard it used.
In NAm, we say things like, "Our apartment is a 3-bed(room), 2 bath."
