Summer sangria on a sunny terrace
Inés orders a pitcher of sangria, red wine with fruit, on a sunny terrace. Her friend orders mosto, grape juice with no alcohol.
Sangría de verano
Tap any word to see its translation
. , , , . . . . . . , .
. . . . .
, , . . . , . . . , . , .
. : . . . . , .
. . . . . .
. . , , . . . . .
Keep reading with translations
Create a free account: 7 days of Pro, then 20 word translations a day or a paid plan.
About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense and drink words: wine, sangria, peach, ice, grape juice.
Inés wants a cold drink with fruit and orders sangria made with red wine, orange, apple, lemon and peach. The name comes from the word for blood, because of the red color. Lara orders mosto, which has no alcohol. Tinto de verano is wine with soda, and white sangria is wine too.
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.
una bebida refrescante
newa refreshing drink
Bebida refrescante is a drink that cools you down. Refrescante is built from refrescar, to refresh, and has one form for both genders: un vino refrescante, una bebida refrescante.
The adjective never changes for gender, which makes it easy to reuse.
días calurosos de verano
newhot summer days
Calurosos agrees with días, which is masculine plural even though it ends in -a. Día is one of the few -a nouns that are masculine: el día, los días calurosos.
Día looks feminine and is not, so it catches out almost every beginner.
Se mezcla con frutas frescas
newit is mixed with fresh fruit
Se mezcla con is the passive se: the wine is mixed, and nobody is named as doing it. Spanish recipes are written almost entirely this way.
The se form is how every Spanish recipe gives its instructions.
color rojo brillante
newbright red colour
In Spanish the adjective normally follows the noun, and a second adjective follows the first: color rojo brillante, never brillante rojo color.
Word order for colours is the reverse of English, and it reverses reliably.
Se deja reposar en la nevera
newit is left to rest in the fridge
Dejar + infinitive means to let something happen: se deja reposar, it is left to rest. La nevera is the Spain word for fridge; Latin America says el refrigerador or la heladera.
Two useful things at once: dejar + infinitive, and a word that changes by country.
beber con moderación
newdrink in moderation
Hay que + infinitive states a rule that applies to everybody: hay que beber con moderación, one must drink in moderation. The hay que part never changes form.
The simplest way to say what should be done, with no subject to conjugate.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Sangría
sangría
sangría, a Spanish wine and fruit drink
The name comes from sangre, blood, because of the deep red colour. Sangre and sangría are a pair worth remembering together.
A word origin you can actually tell somebody, and it fixes the word in memory.
Red wine
vino tinto
red wine
Spanish does not call red wine rojo: red wine is vino tinto, white is vino blanco and rosé is vino rosado. Un tinto on its own means a glass of red.
Asking for vino rojo in a bar sounds wrong; the word is tinto.
Jug, pitcher
jarra
jug, pitcher
Una jarra is a jug with a handle. In a Spanish bar una jarra also means a large glass of beer, so the word covers both.
Everyday container word with a second bar meaning worth knowing.
Ice
hielo
ice
El hielo is ice. Con hielo and sin hielo are what you actually say when ordering a drink.
Two ready-made phrases for ordering: con hielo, sin hielo.
Peach
melocotón
peach
In Spain a peach is un melocotón; in Mexico, Argentina and most of Latin America it is un durazno. Both are standard Spanish.
One fruit with two names, and which one you use says where you learned Spanish.
Mosto
mosto
mosto, non-alcoholic grape juice
El mosto is unfermented grape juice, so it contains no alcohol, and Spanish bars serve it as a soft drink. Do not confuse it with sangría blanca, which is made with white wine and does contain alcohol.
The genuine alcohol-free option on a Spanish drinks list.
Tinto de verano
tinto de verano
red wine with lemon soda over ice
Un tinto de verano is red wine mixed with gaseosa (lemon soda) and served over ice. It is simpler than sangría and is what Spanish bars pour all summer.
Sangría is the famous one, but this is the one you will hear ordered around you.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Se necesita: singular
Se necesita vino tinto
red wine is needed
Se necesita is the passive se with a singular thing: se necesita vino tinto. The verb agrees with what is needed, so a plural thing gives se necesitan. Both forms appear in this text.
This agreement is the one thing learners get wrong with se, and the text shows both forms.
Se añade: is added
Se añade azúcar
sugar is added
Se añade azúcar, sugar is added. Añadir is regular and keeps the ñ throughout: añado, añades, añade.
The verb every recipe uses for putting an ingredient in.
Se mezcla todo bien
Se mezcla todo bien
everything is mixed well
Todo is a singular pronoun meaning the whole lot, so the verb stays singular: se mezcla todo, never se mezclan todo. Bien is an adverb of manner and follows the verb.
Todo is plural in meaning but singular in grammar.
Se sirve: is served
se sirve muy fría
it is served very cold
Se sirve muy fría. The adjective fría is feminine because it describes la sangría, not the impersonal se. Change the drink and it changes: el vino se sirve muy frío.
Shows that the adjective agrees with the thing, not with the se.
Se necesitan: plural
Se necesitan frutas frescas
fresh fruit is needed
With a plural thing the verb becomes plural: se necesitan frutas frescas, next to se necesita vino tinto earlier in the text. The se never changes; the verb follows the noun.
The single most common mistake with se, shown here as a matched pair.
Read a book in Spanish
All A1 books
Comments
Log in to leave a comment
LoginNo comments yet. Be the first!