92 Comments
Tomar is used for eating and drinking
"Tomo alcohol" is "I drink alcohol"
"Tomo comida" is "I eat food"
If you really want to mean that someone takes your food, you should probably say "Roba mi comida" (Literally, that he steals it) or "Acepta mi comida" (to imply that I gave it to him)
One external reference: http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/grammar/verb/vc-tomar.html
I'm not a native speaker, but I've studied it for several years, and I'm just on this website to review it since it's been a few years since the last time I used it. Both of the Mexican-born Spanish teachers I have had used tomar more commonly than either comer or beber as a means of describing consumption of food. I am extremely confident that what I just posted is correct. (Except the part about using aceptar. I'm not sure how to naturally say 'he took my food with my permission' in either language: "Le ofrezco mi comida y la acepta" -- "I offered him my food and he accepted it" -- seems more natural to me than trying to say it with the emphasis on the person taking the food)
Mas ejemplos: Tomo el desayuno a las siete y media. ¿A que hora toma Ud. el desayuno? ¿Que toma Ud. en el desayuno? The use of "tomar" for food and beverage consumption is mostly a Latin American usage. Spainards use "beber" for to drink something.
Thank you. I thought this, too, but did not trust myself, so I wrote "he takes my food" even though I think eats is really a better (idiomatic) translation.
Probablamente, "él trajo mi comida a la mesa" More like, he 'brought' my food to the table, but the same idea.
So this expression is more likely to mean "He eats my food (that I cooked for/gave to him)" than the literal translation "He takes my food (mommy! make him stop!)"?
the best way to think about this one, i feel, is to imagine it's victorian; to 'take one's medicine', or 'do you take milk in your tea?'. i also like think of 'toma' as 'par-take of'. Someone mentioned it's idiomatic, i suspect they are right. To be fair, english has has enough synonyms for eating and drinking, to allow spannish a few. All of them have enough shades of meaning to confuse non natives,- consume, munch, scoff, swallow, ingest, partake of, devour, gobble, wolf. I mean, what does a furry pack animal, or the noise a turkey makes, have to do with the verb to eat?!?
807
One "wolfs" down one's food is directly related to how the fury pack animal eats: rapaciously, greedily, etc.
Gobble, to eat greedily and nosily, has the same root as 'gob' (mouth). The sound a turkey makes is probable derived from this usage, rather than vice versa.
We usually say, "We eat food.", but we often say "We have lunch." to mean that we eat lunch rather than possess it. In Spanish, the expression "toma" is much like "has" or "have" when used this way for food or drinks. I like the reference to the old "partake of" as that could also be used with regards to a meal. We still use "I take medicine." which does translate perfectly into "Tomo...." to mean "ingest".
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Not necessarily. If you force food into his mouth violently, I wouldn't say he took it, but he still ate it.
tomar can be used for drinks as well. I didn't know the exact translation, but take makes sense (to take a beer), whereas eat wouldn't work then.
Master Chief sticks Cloud with a plasma grenade and shoots him in the face with a Rocket Launcher.
Cloud Strife sends the rocket launcher back by using his buster sword to ward it off. While Master Chief is busy trying to find out how in the world Cloud sent it back with only an oversized sword, Cloud uses Omnislash to take him down.
Before the Master Chief gets hit, the plasma grenade stuck to Cloud blows up, bringing Cloud with it. As well, Chief is saved from the Omnislash by the energy shields in his suit.
It's hard to know how to use this expression since in english we don't say "he takes my food".
In English, wouldn't it make more sense to use the word "have" asa a translation. "I'm having soup for lunch," or, "I'll have chicken.". "Yes, I had her food, and it was delicious!". We often use "have" for both food and drink in the US.
Given that toma could mean both to eat and to drink, shouldn't he consumes my food be accepted? After all, it'd seem more in line with the meaning [based on the comments] and it can be used for both eating and drinking.
Good to see the sentence being discussed in an intelligent way. A lingot for you.
Despite the myriad comments, i am still unclear whether my response, "he eats my food," actually should have been accepted? Someone with solid knowledge please respond...
Is "toma" synonymous with "lleva?" Because I have encountered "Ella lleva al niño a la cama" which is translated as "She takes the boy to the bed."
Llevar is mostly used to say: Carry. Take is another way of saying carry in English but not a good direct translation.
This article seems a good read since it explains verbs that sound like they mean the same thing.
Llevar y Tomar are at the bottom http://spanish.about.com/cs/vocabulary/a/moreverbpairs.htm
Hope that helps!
I answered "He takes in my food" and it wasn't accepted. I am confused. Why can I not say "He takes in my food"?
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"Takes in" has a different sense than "takes." If someone "takes in your food," they might be taking it from outside to inside (in which case it's more likely "He takes my food in"), or they might be "taking it in" as part of a survey: "He looks over the kitchen and takes in [as in "notices] your food."
Neither of these senses is conveyed by the use of "tomar" here.
My sentence was meant to mock all the rediculoius complaints about off beat sentences which failed to work.
- 81
I'm practically falling off my chair laughing seeing the reaction and two down-votes to the comment above (drink my food - should I report it?)!
You must have xray vision for being able to see beyond the superficially obvious.
- 81
Was actually having a good laugh from the post but the reaction was what made the chair fail.
How about a carrot? You ever drink a carrot? I have, and carrot juice is great! Yummie! Though I was in no way thinking of such food when I posted. I was making a joke.
I think the way this sentence was worded is to help establish that tomar can be used for the translation to take but not neccesarily steal. i think they are trying to say in the simplist form that it is related to food but also taking said food or drink in certain cases.
Beber is to drink, but the verb "tomar" in Latin America is used for "to take" as well as "to eat" or 'to drink." ¿Tomas café? (Do you drink coffee?)
In Chile "tomar" is used very often in conjunction with food and drink to mean eat or drink. It never means take.
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Where I live, a lot of Spanish speakers say, "lonche." I don't know if that is just a CA Spanish thing.
I'm in Sonora, and lonche is used here on occasion. Almuerzo, not so much. I think the reason is that lunch is an American thing, not a Mexican thing. They have breakfast (desayuno), and that is generally followed with dinner (comida) and in the evening it is supper (cena). The comida is the big meal of the day, and it usually happens sometime early to mid afternoon.
- 876
Where does, "He took my food" ,come in at? I used that and it was wrong, why?
'Took' is past tense of 'take,' it would be a different word in Spanish as in English.
I got the question right, but that was because i guessed thru process of elimination; however, if I was speaking, I would probably use the word coger for "take." Is that incorrect?
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