Fruit and its Spanish names (A1)
Camila, from Argentina, shops in a Valencia market and learns plátano, zumo and fresa. Her aunt counts twelve New Year grapes.
Frutas y sus nombres en español
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense and fruit names: plátano and banana, zumo and jugo, fresa and frutilla.
Camila wants fruit for her aunt Pilar in Valencia. A yellow fruit is plátano in Spain and banana in Argentina and some other American countries. Canary bananas are famous for being smaller and sweeter, and they contain potassium. Orange drink is zumo in Spain and jugo in much of Latin America. Valencia oranges and lemons have vitamin C, and lemons are more acidic. A sign says cinco al día, fruit and vegetables. Before New Year, on the night of 31 December, many people in Spain eat twelve grapes, one for each bell. Camila asks for frutilla, the word in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. The seller understands fresa, and she sees the seeds on the outside. Pilar quotes an English saying about an apple a day and treats it as a saying, not a doctor order.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
Las frutas son alimentos muy importantes para nuestro cuerpo
newFruits are very important foods for our body.
Ser + adjective describes a stable quality. Watch the plural agreement: alimentos importantes.
Useful pattern for saying why a food matters.
Es bueno comer fruta todos los días
newIt is good to eat fruit every day.
Es bueno + infinitive is an impersonal construction. When fruit means the food in general, Spanish says comer fruta in the singular, not comer frutas.
The natural way to say that an action is good for you.
Nos dan energía, vitaminas y minerales
newThey give us energy, vitamins and minerals.
Dan is the third person plural of the irregular verb dar; nos is the indirect object pronoun, to us.
Pattern for saying what a food provides.
Los médicos recomiendan comer al menos cinco piezas de fruta
newDoctors recommend eating at least five pieces of fruit.
Recomendar is a stem-changing verb, e to ie: recomiendo, recomiendas, recomienda, recomiendan. Al menos means at least.
Pattern for giving advice.
Una manzana al día mantiene al médico lejos
newAn apple a day keeps the doctor away.
A saying that comes from English and is repeated in Spanish too. Mantener conjugates like tener: mantengo, mantienes, mantiene. Al is a + el.
An easy sentence to remember, with a stem-changing verb inside it.
las doce uvas de la suerte
newthe twelve lucky grapes
In Spain, on New Year Eve, people eat one grape at each of the twelve chimes of the clock. Spanish joins the nouns with de: las uvas de la suerte.
A real Spanish tradition, and the exact phrase used for it.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
banana
plátano
banana
In Spain the fruit is el plátano. In Argentina and other countries of Latin America people say la banana. The Canary Islands are famous for theirs, which are smaller and very sweet.
The clearest example of Spanish vocabulary changing from country to country.
strawberry
fresa
strawberry
La fresa in Spain, la frutilla in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Both words are correct Spanish; only the country changes.
Another everyday word that changes from one country to another.
juice
zumo
juice
El zumo in Spain, el jugo in Latin America. The verb is exprimir, to squeeze: exprimir una naranja.
Lets you order a drink correctly on either side of the Atlantic.
heart
corazón
heart
El corazón is masculine. The plural loses the written accent, because the stress is no longer on the last syllable: corazones.
A common word and a clear example of an accent that appears only in the singular.
muscles
músculos
muscles
El músculo, plural los músculos. The accent stays in both forms, because the stress falls on the third syllable from the end.
Body vocabulary that comes back in any text about food or sport.
to peel
pelar
to peel
Pelar is a regular -ar verb: pelo, pelas, pela. After fácil de Spanish uses the infinitive: fácil de pelar, easy to peel.
Kitchen verb you need with almost any fruit.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Feminine gender: la manzana
la manzana
la manzana, the apple (feminine)
Most nouns ending in -a are feminine: la manzana, la fresa, la uva. Learn the exceptions early: el día, el problema, el mapa.
Getting the article right is the first step to correct agreement.
Verb SER in the present
Las frutas son alimentos muy importantes
las frutas SON alimentos importantes, fruits are important foods
Ser in the present: soy, eres, es, somos, sois, son. It says what something is and describes its stable qualities.
The first verb you need in order to describe anything.
Verbs like GUSTAR
A los niños les encantan las fresas
a los niños LES encantan las fresas, children love strawberries
With gustar and encantar the thing liked is the subject, so the verb agrees with it: les encanta la fresa, but les encantan las fresas. The person is an indirect object: me, te, le, nos, os, les.
The construction Spanish uses for every statement of taste.
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