La mia fidanzata, invece, preferisce una zuppa di fagioli con spinaci.

In Italian, possessives usually go with the definite article: il mio libro, la mia macchina, la mia fidanzata.

So la mia fidanzata is the normal way to say my girlfriend / my fiancée.

A common exception is with singular close family members, where Italian often drops the article: mia madre, mio fratello, mia sorella. But fidanzata is not usually treated like that in standard usage, so la mia fidanzata is natural.

Fidanzata can mean:

• girlfriend
• fiancée

The exact meaning depends on context.

It is the feminine form of fidanzato, which can mean boyfriend or fiancé. If the sentence does not give more context, a learner should understand that fidanzata refers to a female romantic partner, either engaged or not.

Invece means something like:

• instead
• on the other hand
• by contrast

In this sentence, it shows a contrast with what someone else prefers. So the idea is:

• someone else prefers one thing,
• my girlfriend, on the other hand, prefers bean soup with spinach.

It does not change the basic grammar of the sentence; it just adds contrast.

Here, invece is being used as a parenthetical contrast marker, similar to however or on the other hand in English. The commas show that it is an inserted comment:

• La mia fidanzata, invece, preferisce...

Without commas, the sentence might still be understandable in some contexts, but with commas it clearly sounds like a contrastive aside.

Preferisce is the third person singular form of preferire, meaning to prefer.

So:

• io preferisco = I prefer
• tu preferisci = you prefer
• lui/lei preferisce = he/she prefers

Here the subject is la mia fidanzata, so the verb must be preferisce: my girlfriend prefers.

Preferire is an -ire verb, and many -ire verbs take an extra -isc- in some forms.

That gives forms like:

• preferisco
• preferisci
• preferisce
• preferiscono

This pattern is very common in Italian. Other verbs that behave similarly include:

• capire → capisco
• finire → finisce

So preferisce is the correct present-tense form for she prefers.

Italian often uses an article where English might or might not.

Here una zuppa means a soup or some soup, and it sounds natural because the speaker is referring to one dish/item as her preference.

So:

• preferisce una zuppa di fagioli = she prefers a bean soup / some bean soup

Leaving out the article would generally sound incomplete in this sentence.

Italian often uses di to connect a noun to the ingredient or substance it is made of.

So:

• zuppa di fagioli = bean soup
• literally, soup of beans

This is a very common structure in Italian:

• insalata di pomodori = tomato salad
• succo d’arancia = orange juice
• torta di mele = apple pie

English often uses one noun directly before another, but Italian usually connects them with di.

Fagioli is plural because it means beans.

In Italian, when you talk about a dish made with beans, the ingredient is naturally expressed in the plural:

• zuppa di fagioli = soup made with beans

Using the singular fagiolo here would sound unusual, because the dish is not made from just one bean.

Both patterns can exist in Italian, depending on style and context, but con spinaci is very natural when listing ingredients.

After con, Italian often omits the article when talking about ingredients in a general way:

• pizza con funghi
• pasta con pomodoro
• zuppa con spinaci

So con spinaci means with spinach or with spinach leaves as an ingredient.

If you say con gli spinaci, that can sound a bit more specific, like with the spinach or simply a more fully determined noun phrase. In menu-style or recipe-style language, dropping the article is very common.

Yes. Italian spinaci is grammatically plural, while English spinach is usually treated as an uncountable singular noun.

So:

• spinaci = spinach

This kind of mismatch is normal between languages. A literal word-for-word translation may look odd, but the actual meaning is straightforward.

Italian normally places descriptive phrases after the noun.

So the structure is:

• zuppa = soup
• di fagioli = of beans
• con spinaci = with spinach

Together:

• una zuppa di fagioli con spinaci

English also keeps much of this order in translation, but Italian relies heavily on these post-noun prepositional phrases rather than stacking nouns the way English often does.

In normal interpretation, con spinaci describes the whole soup:

• a bean soup with spinach

That is the most natural reading.

Grammatically, learners sometimes wonder whether it could mean beans with spinach, but in this sentence the phrase is understood as part of the description of zuppa. The full dish is a bean soup that includes spinach.

Yes. Invece is fairly flexible.

For example, you could also say:

• La mia fidanzata preferisce invece una zuppa di fagioli con spinaci.
• Invece, la mia fidanzata preferisce una zuppa di fagioli con spinaci.

These versions are all possible, but La mia fidanzata, invece, preferisce... is especially natural when you want to contrast my girlfriend with someone mentioned just before.

Italian can shift emphasis through intonation.

For example:

• stressing mia fidanzata highlights the contrast with another person
• stressing preferisce highlights the act of preference
• stressing zuppa di fagioli highlights the type of dish
• stressing spinaci highlights the extra ingredient

Because invece is present, the sentence already strongly suggests contrast, especially with the subject: my girlfriend, on the other hand...