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Spanish Food Vocabulary — Words You Can Hear and Play

Food might be the most useful corner of Spanish to learn first — you'll reach for these words at the market, in restaurants and around the dinner table from your very first trip. This page gathers the essential Spanish food and drink vocabulary, from el pan (bread) and el queso (cheese) to la manzana (apple) and el agua (water), each paired with its English meaning, its pronunciation, and a button to hear it spoken in a native voice. One note for English speakers: every Spanish noun carries a gender, so it pays to learn the article alongside the word — el plátano, la leche — rather than the noun on its own. The good news is that Spanish spelling is far kinder than English: letters are pronounced consistently, so once you've heard a word a couple of times you can usually say it on sight. Keep an ear out for the ñ in piña and the rolled r in arroz. Skim the table to get your bearings and tap any 🔊 to train your ear — then take these words into Linguver, where the English word drops and you fire its Spanish translation from the drum. You remember the word you had to aim for.

Key words explained

• apple manzana🔊 I packed an apple in her lunchbox this morning.
• bread pan🔊 The bakery on the corner sells warm bread every afternoon.
• milk leche🔊 He always adds a splash of milk to his tea.
• egg huevo🔊 She cracked an egg into the pan and waited for it to sizzle.
• water agua🔊 Drink plenty of water when the weather gets this hot.
• rice arroz🔊 A bowl of steamed rice came with every dish.
• meat carne🔊 The butcher wrapped the meat in thick brown paper.
• fish pescado🔊 We caught a small fish off the pier and let it go.

All 150 Spanish food words

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