Breakdown of Mi hermana dice que el té caliente le calma el estómago cuando está ansiosa.
Questions & Answers about Mi hermana dice que el té caliente le calma el estómago cuando está ansiosa.
In Spanish, when talking about parts of someone’s body, it’s very common to:
- Use an indirect object pronoun for the person (le = to her), and
- Use the definite article for the body part (el estómago = the stomach), not a possessive.
So:
- Le calma el estómago = [It] calms her stomach (literally: calms the stomach for her).
You can say calma su estómago, and it’s grammatically correct, but it sounds more neutral or even a bit more formal/medical. In everyday speech, le + [article] + body part is more natural:
- Le duele la cabeza. = Her head hurts.
- Me pican los ojos. = My eyes itch.
Le is an indirect object pronoun. Here it means “to her”, and it refers back to mi hermana.
So the structure is:
- Mi hermana (subject of dice)
- el té caliente (subject of calma)
- le = to her (i.e., to my sister)
- el estómago (direct object of calma)
Literally:
El té caliente le calma el estómago.
→ The hot tea calms the stomach to her.
Natural English:
→ Hot tea calms her stomach.
Three points here:
Definite article:
Spanish normally uses an article with countable nouns, even in a general statement:- El té caliente le calma el estómago. = Hot tea calms her stomach. (in general) Omitting the article (Té caliente le calma el estómago) sounds incomplete or more like a headline.
Adjective position:
The default position of most adjectives in Spanish is after the noun:- té caliente = hot tea
- libro interesante = interesting book
Caliente té is not natural; it sounds wrong in standard Spanish.
You could drop el in some very informal or “recipe-like” styles, but in a normal sentence like this, el té caliente is the most natural.
These are actually two different structures:
té caliente
- caliente is an attributive adjective modifying the noun té.
- Attributive adjectives usually come after the noun in Spanish:
- una casa grande, una comida rica, un té caliente.
está ansiosa
- ansiosa is a predicate adjective linked to the subject by the verb estar.
- With ser/estar, the adjective normally comes after the verb:
- está cansado, es simpática, está ansiosa.
So:
- Noun + adjective: té caliente
- Verb + adjective: está ansiosa
Está ansiosa refers back to mi hermana.
Spanish adjectives agree with the gender and number of the noun they describe:
- mi hermana – feminine singular
- → ansiosa – feminine singular to match
If the subject were masculine, it would be:
- Mi hermano dice que el té caliente le calma el estómago cuando está ansioso.
(My brother says that hot tea calms his stomach when he is anxious.)
So ansiosa tells you the subject of está is feminine.
The choice is about ser vs. estar:
- estar ansiosa = to be feeling anxious (a temporary state)
- ser ansiosa = to be an anxious person in general (a character trait)
In this sentence, we’re talking about moments or situations when her stomach is upset and hot tea helps her — those are temporary states, so estar is correct:
- …cuando está ansiosa. = …when she is (feeling) anxious.
…cuando es ansiosa would sound like “when she is an anxious person”, which doesn’t really fit with a specific moment when tea helps.
Spanish usually drops subject pronouns when the subject is clear from context or from the verb ending. Here, the subject is named explicitly:
- Mi hermana dice… already tells you who is speaking.
Adding ella right after that (Mi hermana, ella dice…) would be redundant or sound emphatic or stylistic.
You could start a sentence as:
- Ella dice que el té caliente le calma el estómago…
This would be fine if ella had already been mentioned before and you didn’t want to repeat mi hermana or her name. But with mi hermana already there, ella is not needed.
It’s grammatically possible, but it sounds odd and redundant in everyday Spanish.
- le already tells you “to her”
- su estómago also tells you “her stomach”
Putting both together (le calma su estómago) is usually avoided unless you have a specific contrast in mind (for example, contrasting her stomach with someone else’s in a very marked way).
Natural options:
- El té caliente le calma el estómago. ✅
- El té caliente calma su estómago. ✅ (more neutral/formal)
- El té caliente le calma su estómago. ❌ generally sounds off/redundant
Spanish prefers the definite article with body parts when the owner is already indicated by a pronoun or context:
- Le duele la cabeza. = Her head hurts.
- Me lavo las manos. = I wash my hands.
- El té caliente le calma el estómago. = Hot tea calms her stomach.
The le already encodes who the stomach belongs to. Using su estómago is possible but sounds more formal, “dictionary-like”, or like medical language.
No, that would sound wrong in Spanish.
Adjective position with “estómago”:
- Normal: el estómago caliente (the hot stomach)
- Your version: el caliente estómago sounds very literary or poetic and would mean “the hot stomach” in a heavily stylized way. It would not fit normal speech here.
Meaning change:
- el té caliente le calma el estómago: hot tea calms her (normal) stomach.
- el té le calma el estómago caliente: tea calms her hot stomach (focus on the stomach being hot).
- But even then, el estómago caliente would be more normal than el caliente estómago.
In the original, caliente clearly modifies té, not estómago:
- el té caliente = hot tea
- el estómago = the stomach
Both are possible, but they mean slightly different things:
Mi hermana dice que… (present)
- She says this now, or this is something she often says / it’s her usual opinion.
Mi hermana dijo que… (past)
- She said it at some point in the past. It’s a specific past statement.
In your sentence, the present dice suggests a general or current opinion/habit, which fits well with the idea that hot tea tends to calm her stomach when she’s anxious.