[Grammar] The size of families tend to be much smaller that they were.

[newkeenlearner]

Are these correct? I have a lot of problem putting correct form of verb after than, because we have the verb "tend to" in the first part of the sentence. This makes me confuse.

The size of families tend to be much smaller than they were.
The size of families tend to be much smaller than they used to be.
The size of families tend to be much smaller than they did.

 

[tzfujimino]

There's no "than" in those three sentences.

 

[GoesStation]

They are all incorrect. The subject of each is the size, which is singular.

A simpler way to express this idea is Families tend to be smaller than they used to be.

 

[Tdol]

The size of families tends to be smaller than it was sounds weird to me, though it isn't wrong. I much prefer GoesStation's version- size doesn't add anything here.

 

[Raymott]

It's also true that families tend to be taller than they used to be, but I'm sure the context would disambiguate the above sentence.