The Peruvian cajón: a wooden box you play sitting on it
An easy Spanish text about the Peruvian cajón: where it comes from, how the player sits on it, why the middle of the front board sounds low and the top edge sounds high, and how it reached flamenco.
El cajón peruano: siéntate en tu instrumento
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The text introduces the Peruvian cajón: a wooden box the musician sits on, born in the Afro-Peruvian music of the coast. The reader sits down, puts their hands in the middle of the front board for a low sound and then on the top edge for a higher one, looks at the round hole in the back, and meets the quijada, the donkey jawbone that rattles in festejo music. It closes with 2 August, the Day of the Peruvian Cajón, and with the instrument reaching flamenco after Paco de Lucía bought one in Lima in 1977. Sixteen cards work through the words and forms of the text, and the article ends with three questions for the reader.
La palabra «cajón» viene de «caja». Este instrumento nace en la costa de Perú, en la música afroperuana.
¿Quieres probar? Siéntate sobre el cajón, con la espalda recta y las piernas abiertas. Así tus manos llegan bien a la tapa de delante.
Esa tapa es de madera fina. Pon las manos en el centro de la tapa: el sonido es grave, como un tambor grande. En el borde de arriba, el sonido es más agudo. Escucha bien la diferencia.
El cajón tiene un agujero redondo en la parte de atrás. Por ese agujero sale el sonido. Mira tu cajón por detrás antes de tocar.
El cajón acompaña el festejo, una música alegre de la costa peruana. En el festejo hay otro instrumento curioso: la quijada. Es un hueso de la boca de un burro, con los dientes flojos. El músico da un golpe con la mano y los dientes suenan.
Perú celebra el Día del Cajón Peruano el 2 de agosto. Busca esa fecha en tu calendario.
En 1977, un guitarrista español visita Lima. Se llama Paco de Lucía. En una fiesta, él escucha un cajón peruano. Compra uno y lleva el instrumento a España. Hoy el cajón también suena en el flamenco.
¿Puedes tocar un instrumento? ¿Qué instrumento es típico de tu país? ¿Tienes en casa una caja de madera grande?
About this article
What you'll learn
Affirmative tú commands as they appear in the text (siéntate, pon, escucha, mira, busca), including the short irregular «pon» and the reflexive «siéntate»; poder plus an infinitive; the possessive tu/tus; the present tense used to tell a past story; and the vocabulary of the instrument: cajón, tapa, grave, agujero, quijada, flojo.
The text introduces the Peruvian cajón: a wooden box the musician sits on, born in the Afro-Peruvian music of the coast. The reader sits down, puts their hands in the middle of the front board for a low sound and then on the top edge for a higher one, looks at the round hole in the back, and meets the quijada, the donkey jawbone that rattles in festejo music. It closes with 2 August, the Day of the Peruvian Cajón, and with the instrument reaching flamenco after Paco de Lucía bought one in Lima in 1977. Sixteen cards work through the words and forms of the text, and the article ends with three questions for the reader.
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.
se sienta encima de la caja
newsits on top of the box
«Se sienta» comes from «sentarse» (to sit down). It is reflexive, so a pronoun always goes with it: me, te, se, nos, os, se. «Encima de» means «on top of».
This is how posture is described: «se sienta encima de la caja», «se sienta en la silla».
con la espalda recta
newwith a straight back
«La espalda» is the back and «recta» means straight. With body parts Spanish usually takes the article (la, las) rather than a possessive: «con la espalda recta», «con las manos abiertas».
A standard phrase in instructions: sport, music, yoga, sitting at a desk.
Por ese agujero sale el sonido
newThe sound comes out through that hole
The word order is inverted: the verb «sale» comes before its subject «el sonido». Spanish often does this when a sentence opens with a place phrase.
It trains you to find the subject even when it follows the verb.
da un golpe con la mano
newstrikes it with the hand
Spanish often uses «dar + noun» where English has one verb: «dar un golpe» = to hit, «dar un paseo» = to take a walk, «dar un abrazo» = to hug.
The pattern repeats across many expressions, so the shape is worth memorising.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
el cajón
cajón
cajón; a big box
«Cajón» is built from «caja» (box) plus the ending -ón, which makes a thing bigger. In many countries «un cajón» is also the drawer of a table or a cupboard. In Peru it names a percussion instrument.
The ending -ón works elsewhere too: silla - sillón (armchair), taza - tazón (large cup).
la tapa
tapa
lid; the front board
«La tapa» is what covers or closes something: a pot lid, a book cover. On a cajón it is the thin front board you strike. In Spain «una tapa» is also a small snack served with a drink.
One word with several everyday senses, all worth recognising.
grave
grave
low, deep (of a sound)
With sounds, «grave» means low and deep, and its opposite is «agudo» (high). The word carries other senses too, such as serious: «un problema grave».
The pair grave / agudo works for voices, instruments and pronunciation.
el agujero
agujero
hole
«Un agujero» is a hole: in a wall, in clothes, in the wood of an instrument. The stress falls on -je-: a-gu-JE-ro.
A very common everyday word, from socks to walls.
la quijada
quijada
jawbone; the instrument made from one
«La quijada» is an animal jawbone. In Afro-Peruvian music it also names a percussion instrument: the dried jaw of a donkey or a horse, with loose teeth that rattle when you strike it with the hand or scrape the teeth with a stick.
The name of a real instrument, easy to search for and listen to.
flojos
flojos
loose, slack
«Flojo» describes something that is not firm: a wobbly tooth, a slack rope. It agrees with its noun: flojo, floja, flojos, flojas.
The opposite of apretado (tight) and tenso (taut), a useful pair for describing objects.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Siéntate: a command with a reflexive pronoun
Siéntate sobre el cajón
Sit down on the cajón
The tú command of «sentarse». The pronoun te attaches to the end of the verb: sienta + te = siéntate. The stem also changes, e to ie, as in «tú te sientas».
levántate, cállate and prepárate are built the same way, and all three are everyday commands.
Pon: a short irregular command
Pon las manos
Put your hands
The tú command of «poner» is simply «pon», with no ending. A small group of verbs behaves the same way: tener - ten, venir - ven, salir - sal, hacer - haz, decir - di, ir - ve, ser - sé. These forms are learned by heart.
They belong to the most frequent verbs in the language, so the short commands come up constantly.
Escucha: a regular verb command
Escucha bien la diferencia
Listen carefully to the difference
For regular verbs the affirmative tú command looks exactly like the él/ella present form: escuchar - escucha, mirar - mira, buscar - busca, comer - come, escribir - escribe. A few verbs have their own short forms instead (pon, ten, ven, sal, haz, di, ve, sé), so those are checked separately.
One shape does two jobs, and it is almost always the context that tells them apart.
tus manos: a plural possessive
tus manos
your hands
«Tu» becomes «tus» before a plural noun: tu mano - tus manos. The possessive agrees with the thing owned, not with the owner. Note also that «tu» without an accent is the possessive, while «tú» with one is the pronoun you.
It covers two classic beginner slips at once: tu / tus and tu / tú.
poder + infinitive
Puedes tocar
Can you play
After «poder» the second verb stays in the infinitive: «puedes tocar», «puedo ver». In «poder» itself the stem o turns into ue: puedo, puedes, puede, pueden, while «podemos» keeps the o.
«Poder» opens questions about ability, permission and possibility, three everyday needs.
Present tense telling a past story
visita Lima
visits Lima (an event of 1977)
Here «visita» is in the present tense, although the event happened in 1977. Spanish often tells past events in the present so the story feels closer; the date «En 1977» carries the time. «Nace» near the start of the text works the same way.
It keeps you from reading a narrative sentence as an order: here «visita» has a subject in front of it, «un guitarrista español», so it is not an order.
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