La leche se dañó en la nevera.

The milk went bad in the fridge.

Breakdown of La leche se dañó en la nevera.

• en: in
• la leche: the milk
• la nevera: the fridge
• dañarse: to go bad

Questions & Answers about La leche se dañó en la nevera.

What does se mean in se dañó? Is it reflexive, like “the milk damaged itself”?

In this sentence, se is not really reflexive in the literal sense. It’s what’s often called a pronominal or “middle voice” use.

• Dañar = to damage / to spoil (someone/something does the action)
• Dañarse = to get damaged / to go bad / to spoil (it happens to the thing itself)

So:

• La leche se dañó. ≈ “The milk went bad / got spoiled.”
• El niño dañó la leche. = “The child ruined/spoiled the milk.”

The se here tells you the subject undergoes the change of state; it doesn’t literally do it to itself on purpose.

Why is it dañó and not some other tense like se ha dañado or se dañaba?

Dañó is the preterite (simple past), used for a completed event in the past.

• La leche se dañó en la nevera.
  The milk went bad (at some point, done and over now).

Other options:

• La leche se ha dañado.
  Perfect tense, often used (especially in Spain) to highlight result now: “The milk has gone bad.”
• La leche se dañaba en la nevera.
  Imperfect; suggests ongoing/repeated past action: “The milk kept going bad in the fridge / used to go bad in the fridge.”

So the preterite se dañó says: this happened once, it’s a finished event in the past.

Why do we need the article in la leche? Why not just say leche?

In Spanish, mass nouns like “milk”, “water”, “bread” usually take a definite article when you’re talking about a specific instance:

• La leche se dañó. = That (specific) milk went bad.
• Compré la leche y el pan. = I bought the milk and the bread (that we’re talking about).

If you drop the article and say just leche:

• Me gusta la leche. (normal; generic)
• Me gusta leche. (sounds off/wrong)

So in this sentence, la leche is “the particular milk” you had in the fridge, so it naturally takes la.

Could I say Se dañó la leche en la nevera instead? Does changing the word order change the meaning?

Yes, you can say both:

• La leche se dañó en la nevera.
• Se dañó la leche en la nevera.

Both are correct and mean the same: “The milk went bad in the fridge.”

Differences are about emphasis/information flow:

• La leche se dañó… starts with the topic (“the milk”), which is the most neutral in many contexts.
• Se dañó la leche… can sound like you’re introducing what happened, and then specifying what got damaged: “(What happened?) The milk went bad…”

In everyday speech, both sound normal; context and intonation do the rest.

Could you also say La leche está dañada en la nevera? What’s the difference from se dañó?

You can say La leche está dañada, but it’s not the most natural way to talk about spoiled food.

• La leche se dañó.
  Focus on the event/change: “The milk went bad.”
• La leche está dañada.
  Focus on the resulting state: “The milk is damaged / ruined.”

For food “going bad”, native speakers prefer verbs that express change of state:

• La leche se dañó.
• La leche se echó a perder.
• La leche se puso mala.

Está dañada sounds more like an object that was damaged (e.g., a product that got ruined in shipping), not naturally like “the milk spoiled.”

Are there other common ways to say “the milk went bad” in Latin American Spanish?

Yes, several very common alternatives:

• La leche se echó a perder. – Very common and neutral.
• La leche se puso mala. – Also common, informal.
• La leche se cortó. – Often used when the milk has curdled or separated.
• La leche está agria. – Focuses on the sour taste: “The milk is sour.”

Se dañó is widely understood and used in many countries (especially the Caribbean, parts of Central and northern South America), but your teacher or textbook might prefer se echó a perder as a very common general expression.

Is dañar only used for food going bad, or does it have other meanings?

Dañar is a general verb meaning “to damage / to harm / to ruin”.

Examples:

• El sol dañó la pintura del carro. – The sun damaged the car’s paint.
• Fumar daña la salud. – Smoking harms your health.
• Dejaste la computadora en la lluvia y se dañó. – You left the computer in the rain and it got damaged/broke.

With food or products:

• La leche se dañó. – The milk went bad.
• El televisor se dañó. – The TV broke (stopped working).

So dañarse is a very flexible verb for both spoiling (food) and breaking down (objects).

What exactly does nevera mean? Is it the same as “refrigerator”?

Yes. La nevera in most of Latin America is a common word for refrigerator / fridge.

Other regional terms:

• el refrigerador – widely used, more formal/neutral.
• la refri – colloquial short form from refrigerador.
• la heladera – used in Argentina, Uruguay, parts of other Southern Cone areas.
• el frigo – more common in Spain.

So La leche se dañó en la nevera is equivalent in meaning to:

• La leche se dañó en el refrigerador.

Why is the preposition en used? Could I say something like a la nevera or dentro la nevera?

For location (“in / inside / at” a place), Spanish uses en:

• en la nevera = “in the fridge”

Alternatives:

• dentro de la nevera = literally “inside the fridge,” a bit more explicit than en, but same idea.
• a la nevera normally suggests movement toward the fridge:
  
  • Mete la leche a la nevera. – Put the milk in the fridge.

So:

• La leche se dañó en la nevera. ✅
• La leche se dañó dentro de la nevera. ✅ (also fine)
• La leche se dañó dentro la nevera. ❌ (needs de)

Why is dañó accented, and how do you pronounce ñ?

Dañó has an accent because it’s a past tense (preterite) form and the stress goes on the last syllable: da–ñÓ. Without the accent (dano), it would be a different word and would be mispronounced.

About ñ:

• ñ is a separate letter in Spanish, not just an “n” with a mark.
• It’s pronounced like the ny in “canyon” or “onion”.
• So dañó sounds like “da-nyó”.

Compare:

• ano – “anus” (careful!)
• año – “year”

That little tilde on the ñ really matters.

What is the subject of the sentence? Is it la leche or something else?

The subject is la leche.

• Verb: se dañó (third person singular, past)
• Subject: la leche (third person singular noun phrase)

The se is not the subject; it’s part of the verb’s pronominal form dañarse.

So structurally:

• La leche (subject)
• se dañó (verb phrase “went bad”)
• en la nevera (prepositional phrase of location)

Why isn’t there a pronoun like ella for “it / she” in la leche se dañó?

Spanish usually omits subject pronouns when the verb ending already shows the person and number.

• Se dañó. → third person singular (he / she / it).
• Once you add la leche, it’s clear that “it” = the milk.

Adding a pronoun here:

• Ella se dañó, la leche. – would sound odd or wrong.
• Ella se dañó. – “She got hurt / she got damaged,” not about milk.

Spanish doesn’t use elle/ello for “it” in normal speech. You just say se dañó and give the noun (la leche) if needed for clarity.

Is la leche always feminine just because of the word, or is there a logic to the gender?

Leche is grammatically feminine; that’s why it takes la and not el.

For most nouns, grammatical gender is largely arbitrary and has to be memorized:

• la leche (f.)
• el agua (f. but uses el in singular for sound reasons)
• el vino (m.)
• la cerveza (f.)

There’s no deep logic about “milk” being feminine. It’s just how the noun evolved historically in Spanish. You have to learn leche = feminine, so:

• la leche fría, esta leche, toda la leche

Could se dañó here ever mean “someone damaged it,” like a passive voice?

In La leche se dañó en la nevera, the natural reading is “the milk went bad”, not “someone damaged it.”

However, Spanish has a “se passive / se accidental” construction where it can feel a bit like a passive:

• Se dañó la computadora. – “The computer got damaged / broke.” (no agent mentioned)
• Se me dañó la computadora. – “My computer got damaged / broke on me.”

You’d normally use dañar without se to explicitly mention an agent:

• Alguien dañó la leche. – Someone spoiled/ruined the milk.

So in the fridge sentence, se dañó is best understood as “went bad” (no person involved), not as a passive with a hidden agent.