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- "Él bebe la sopa."
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the literally translation is: he drinks the soup, but I think it would correct to say He eats the soup. I am not English mother tongue so can anyone help me on this please:-)
I'm glad you put the "US' there, because the English language has so many dialects, in some areas, we would say "drinks" the soup.
In Canada we say pop and not pepsi and we would probably say eat soup rather than drink. Dialect problems.... Honour Labour Valour Potatoe Tomatoe
He drink or eats can be used simultaneously I put down He eats the soup Cause in Canada we say eat more than drink for soup Mmm curry NEED CURRY NOW!!!!
If he were tilting his bowl up and slurping broth, we'd say "drinks". But normally, yes, we use "eat" for soup.
it's not absolutely clear even for spanish speakers. Personally, I always say "tomar la sopa" or "tomar un helado", never "comer".
Ha! I think I remember this exact discussion in my high school Spanish class 20 years ago and getting consistently wrong on every exam.
That depends on the context and what country your talking about. About the soup, if you drink it or eat it, will depend if you are grtting it ffom the bowl or if you are using a spoon (and will depend also if the soup is thin or thik, you will never can drink a thik soup).
About the expression "tomar un helado" is juat a phrase to mean you are getting out with somebody to enjoy a good time and an ice cream.
Not necessarily. "Tomar un helado" could mean just "tomar un helado.", it does not contain extra info.
He "drinks" the soup ==> Él "bebe" la sopa.
He "eats" the soup ==> Él "come" la sopa (Doesn't make sense to me :D )
Gracious :)
I have friends in other countries who drink soup but he in Canada, we eat soup.
I speak UK English. I am more likely to have soup as part of a meal (to eat) than as a beverage (to drink) although the latter isn't ruled out. (One could drink a liquid lunch, but my soups are lacking certain ingredients most often implied by the phrase.)
While it is more idiomatic for me to say "He eats the soup." (or at least more likely in my (English) idiolect) I can see both sides of this. A soup can be served as part of a meal, meals are eaten, so the soup is eaten. Liquids are drunk, so the soup is drunk.
The following exchange can easily happen in English:
- A: What are you going to have to eat?
- B: Soup.
The following (while not incorrect) is unlikely while eating out and, in my opinion, only likely informally:
- A: What are you going to have to drink?
- B: Soup.
If this did occur while eating out, at least in my region of the UK, I feel confident that it would be treated as a joke and you could then be asked something along the lines of: "Yes, but what are you going to (have for a) drink?"
I resolve this by keeping "eats the soup" as the more likely in my English idiolect, but my Spanish idiolect currently has "bebe la sopa".
I'm so confused, it should be E'l come la sopa because you don't put soup in a glass and drink it
you can put it in a mug and sip it. Broth soup, tomato soup etc is quite nice sipped from a mug.
Actually, it could be drink because not all soups have extra things in tyhem like chicken or noodles.
Drinking or eating soup is cultural/historical. In many cultures people drink the soup directly from the bowl and do not use a spoon. Also remember that tableware for eating is a modern invention in context to human life on earth and eating habits. This is helpful to think about for gender issues as well with words. For instance, in Spanish the dress is "El Vestido." In German and Spanish dress is masculine! Now, logically you would say how strange! Why is it not La Vestida? BUT, think about things historically. Men and Women wore tunics/vestaments=dress and hose before pants were invented! Think about kilts that many men in cultures wore (Teutonic/Celtic.) Many times when you come across these things look up the history and it becomes quite fun and helps to clarify the quandry.
Well, have you ever drank soup out of the side of the bowl? I think that's what this is implying because beber directly translates to drink & if it meant to say 'eat the soup' it would have said come(comer) la sopa.
Usually you say “eats the soup” but since soup is a liquid, you can also “drinks the soup”. It is not as common though.
Picture if you will a conversation in your kitchen. A nice cream of vegetable soup is simmering on the stove. Your guests all reach for the bowls and spoons except for Jim. Jim grabs himself a mug. Everyone stops cold and stares at Jim.
Good host that you are, you point out to the others: ''Él bebe la sopa''.
Order is restored.
I'm pretty sure it's been known to happen. :-)
Best example! People should not be judged based on how they consume their soup!
Care to attend one of my parties, Jazzdragon? I could use your diplomacy. We shall drink soup with abandon!!!
I would be most delighted, so long as I may slurp in appreciation to the good chef and host!
I guess most ppl never had that lunch thermos when they were a kid & literally had to drink their tomato soup. I think it's an experience or cultural thing. Great example you used.
If you get the chance listen to natural Spanish speakers either on the net or hols Spain and the likes and mimic they're sound. don't for get "mas despacio por favor" (speak slower please).
Would a Spanish speaker ever say "come la sopa"? or do they always say "bebe"?
If Spanish people would never say "bebe sopa" instead of "bebe la sopa", then I think that the correct translation should be "He drinks soup" not "the". It's like when French say "Je joue au football" but we translate "I play football" not "the football".
Why does El sometimes have an accent on the E and other times not .....getting frustrated..Is there a rule?
Yes, if there's an accent, then it means "he". Otherwise, it means "the".
To build on world_traveler, I remember it easiest this way: If it's El by itself it has an accent. If it's el hombre or el any noun, there is no accent.
I asked someone from Guatemala about this question and she said that she would use comer and never beber.
I'm curious here. Does "Él bebe la sopa" naturally mean he's eating soup by drinking it since soup is a liquid? or does it just mean he's drinking the soup from some sort of can or container?
él/he can be subject : él es guapo.. Èl/him means him when it's a complement : el culpable es él.
mitaine56, i know when el is him, just wanted to tell you it is not just he
You can drink tomato soup but there are also vegetable soup which have real vegi bits needs to be eaten unless you don't have any teeth you will need to blend it then drink it...
Is this referring to a soup-drinking event of the past?' He drinks the soup' isn't a valid English sentence. It doesn't seem like it is 'He is drinking the soup' either since that would be 'El es bebe la sopa' (Correct me if I am wrong). Just need some elucidation on when to use which syntax=D
I am afraid you are slightly mistaken on both counts. Firstly, "He drinks the soup" is an entirely correct English sentence. It is the present tense and refers to an action as it occurs. "He is drinking the soup" is a different tense: the 'present continuous'. The point of making this distinction is that it is used to refer to ongoing actions, and it is also a different tense in other Romance languages like Spanish.
Secondly, if you want to say "he is drinking", you use estar + the present participle, e.g. "él está bebiendo". So the Duolingo translation is correct.
I was talking about that sentence being grammatically correct, not when you use eat vs drink.
"Él bebe la sopa" Él = he where as la=the is the feminine this has confused me Shouldn't it be She(Élla) drinks the soup ==> "Élla bebe la sopa."
They talk about Él in the sentence, not ELLA. la is feminine and goes with la sopa. La /el always is with a noun, never subject of a verb.
Gracias mitaine56 What I meant was without having the sentence in full, if I have a noun we need to familiarise ourselves whether the noun is masculine or feminine so we can use the appropriate gender descriptive eg here we know sopa is feminine so we know we need to use La sopa... so we need to know for eg what gender is Banana or apple and other nouns like that.
Singhno1, unfortunately you are right. what one has to do is LEARN the article along WITH the noun
A good rule of thumb is LONERS is masculine. If a word ends in any of those letters it is masculine. This is not 100%, so you have to learn the exceptions, but it has been a pretty helpful trick for me.
I tried to get past the eat/drink issue about soup by translating it to say "He consumes the soup." But the owl didn't like that!
If the broth have condiments and very little pieces of things you can call it soup and drink it.
Because you haven't drink a tomato soup, or chicken soup without things to bite on it yet.
So all of these phrases so far are in present tense, like this. How would I turn this into past tense? I.e. the drank the soup. Are we taught this in a later lesson?
ShayTastic, i drank is yo bebi, with an accent over the i. when you go onto duo, if you scroll down, you'll see the past, future, conditional, etc
There is no "elle" in Spanish. Él means he and ella means she. Él sound "ehl" and ella sounds "eh-yah", "eh-iah", "eh-jah", "eh-sha" (depends on the country).
Si no tiene cosas para morder, sí. ¿Nunca viste una sopa de pollo sin que tenga pollo adentro? ¿O una sopa de verduras sin verduras adentro? Sólo el gusto y condimentos. O una sopa de tomate.
May be a silly question but why is it "la" instead of "una"? For some reason I thought after the verb you use un and una....please guide me my friends!
OliRif, the prompt is "he drinks the soup", la is "the", una is "a" or "an"
So misleading if you ask me. Duo teaches us the bebe is drink. Even when it sounds odd to use drink instead of drinks we still had to use drink for the check. So of course when i see the sentence él bebe la sopa, i translate it as he drink the soup because thats how Duo wanted it in past. Now switched it up and its now drinks.
Conflicting coz half the time idk when to trust my gut or not for the sake of being super precise for the check.
Osomu, for "bebe" duo wants "drinks" because bebe means drinks if it is el or ella, if it is usted, then it's "drink" as in you drink, and with duo always be super precise
Yea, since then i figured it out. At the time it was really confusing but i think i have a good handle on it now.
They are differen words:
- El = The (masculine, singular) = Definite article
- Él = He = Personal pronoun
You can drink the soup only if you use no spoon (from the cup or a bowl liftet to your mouth)
