Breakdown of Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa.
Questions & Answers about Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa.
Piqué is the preterite (simple past) form of picar for yo (I).
- Yo pico = I chop / I am chopping (present)
- Yo piqué = I chopped (completed action in the past)
Because the action happened yesterday and is clearly finished, Spanish uses the preterite: Ayer piqué…
In cooking, picar usually means:
- to chop finely, dice, or mince
It’s more specific than general cortar (to cut):
- cortar = to cut (in almost any way)
- picar = to chop into small pieces, often neatly, as for cooking
So piqué verdura suggests you cut the vegetables into fairly small pieces, not just a few big chunks.
No, picar is very polysemous (has many meanings). Common ones:
- Cooking: chop finely
- Picar cebolla – to chop onion
- Sensation: to itch / to sting / to burn (skin, mouth)
- Me pica la espalda – My back itches
- La salsa pica – The sauce is spicy (it “stings/burns”)
- Animals/insects: to bite, sting
- La abeja me picó – The bee stung me
- Eating: to snack, nibble
- Vamos a picar algo – Let’s grab a bite
In your sentence, the cooking context makes it clearly “to chop.”
The accent mark on piqué:
- Marks the stressed syllable: pi-QUÉ
- Pronounced like “pee-KEH” (with the stress on -qué).
- Keeps the -que spelling: in Spanish, que is needed to keep the hard “k” sound before e, and the accent shows it’s past tense, not present.
Compare:
- (yo) piqué – I chopped (past)
- (yo) pique – (subjunctive / command form; rarely used in isolation)
- (él) pique – that he chops / may he chop
So the accent both guides pronunciation and distinguishes forms.
Both are possible; the choice is about nuance:
- verdura (singular) often works like a mass noun:
“vegetable” in general, or “some vegetable(s)” - verduras (plural) emphasizes separate items or types:
carrots, onions, peppers, etc., as distinct pieces
So:
- Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa.
→ I chopped (some) vegetable(s) for the soup (general). - Ayer piqué verduras para la sopa.
→ I chopped vegetables (several types, multiple pieces).
In everyday speech, both are very common and often interchangeable.
Spanish can drop the article when talking about an unspecified amount of a noun (similar to English “some”):
- Piqué verdura. = I chopped (some) vegetable / vegetables.
- Compré pan. = I bought bread.
- Tomó café. = He drank coffee.
Use the article la verdura when you mean specific, known vegetables:
- Piqué la verdura que compramos ayer.
→ I chopped the vegetables that we bought yesterday.
In your sentence, the type/quantity isn’t specified, so no article is natural.
Both are used, but frequency and nuance vary by region:
- Verduras: very common in many places, especially Mexico and much of Central America.
- Vegetales: also common, sometimes felt as a bit more general or slightly more formal/neutral.
Some rough tendencies:
- Mexico: verduras and vegetales both heard.
- Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, etc.): verduras and also vegetales.
- Spain (for comparison): verduras and hortalizas.
Your sentence could also be:
- Ayer piqué verduras para la sopa.
- Ayer piqué vegetales para la sopa.
All are understandable; local preference may vary.
Here, la sopa refers to a specific soup you’re making/eating, so Spanish uses the definite article:
- para la sopa = for the soup (this particular soup)
Without the article (para sopa) sounds incomplete or odd in most contexts; it would feel like “for soup (in general)” and isn’t natural here.
Compare:
- Es buena para la sopa. – It’s good for (this kind of) soup.
- Me gusta la sopa. – I like soup (Spanish often uses la where English omits “the”).
Yes, but the meaning changes slightly:
- para la sopa
→ for the soup (a particular soup, probably already understood in context) - para una sopa
→ for a soup (some soup, not specifically identified; maybe you’re just planning to make “a soup,” not a specific one yet)
In many real-life contexts both might work, but para la sopa is more typical when you’re in the middle of cooking a specific soup.
Yes. Ayer is quite flexible:
- Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa. (very common)
- Piqué verdura para la sopa ayer.
- Piqué ayer verdura para la sopa.
All are correct. Ayer at the beginning is especially common because it sets the time frame right away, but word order here doesn’t change the meaning.
In Spanish, the subject pronoun (yo, tú, él, etc.) is often dropped because the verb ending already shows who the subject is:
- Piqué can only be yo (I) in the preterite of picar.
- So Ayer piqué verdura… automatically means Yesterday I chopped vegetables…
You only say Yo piqué… when you want to emphasize “I”:
- Yo piqué la verdura, no él.
→ I chopped the vegetables, not him.
Sopa is a feminine noun, so it takes la:
- la sopa, una sopa, esta sopa
General but not perfect patterns:
- Nouns ending in -a are often feminine: la sopa, la casa, la mesa
- There are exceptions: el problema, el mapa, etc.
You simply have to learn each noun with its article:
- la sopa – the soup
- el pan – the bread
- la verdura – the vegetable(s)
In your sentence, para la sopa uses la because sopa is feminine.
Yes, that’s grammatically correct, but the nuance changes:
- picar: to chop finely / dice / mince
→ suggests small pieces, as in careful food prep. - cortar: to cut (in general)
→ more neutral; doesn’t say how big the pieces are.
So:
- Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa.
→ You likely chopped the vegetables into small, soup-friendly pieces. - Ayer corté verdura para la sopa.
→ You cut the vegetables; the size/method is not specified.
In a cooking context, picar often sounds more precise and natural for this task.
Verdura is feminine and usually treated as plural in meaning (vegetables), so you use la (singular feminine) or las (plural) depending on the wording:
If you used singular:
- Compré verdura. Ayer la piqué para la sopa.
→ I bought vegetables. Yesterday I chopped them for the soup.
(Here la refers to la verdura as a mass.)
If you used plural:
- Compré verduras. Ayer las piqué para la sopa.
→ I bought vegetables. Yesterday I chopped them for the soup.
Both patterns are common; choose the pronoun that matches how you originally expressed the noun.
The preterite is used for completed, single actions in the past:
- Ayer piqué verdura para la sopa.
→ Yesterday I chopped vegetables (you started, did it, and finished).
The imperfect (picaba) would suggest an ongoing or repeated action, or background description:
- Ayer picaba verdura cuando llegaste.
→ Yesterday I was chopping vegetables when you arrived. - Siempre picaba verdura para la sopa los domingos.
→ I used to chop vegetables for the soup on Sundays.
Since your sentence describes a one-time, complete task, the preterite (piqué) is the natural choice.