Questions & Answers about Esta sopa está muy rica.
Why are there two very similar words, esta and está, in the same sentence?
Why does está have an accent, but esta does not?
Why is estar used here instead of ser?
In Spanish, estar is commonly used to describe how food tastes or seems at a particular moment.
So:
For food, estar + adjective is very natural when talking about the result, condition, or how it tastes right now.
A learner should usually remember:
Using ser here would usually sound less natural if you are simply praising the soup you are eating.
In this context, está muy rica is the most natural choice if you mean the soup tastes delicious right now.
Es muy rica can sometimes sound like:
For a learner, the safest and most natural phrase for praising food is:
So with soup:
Esta means this, referring to something near the speaker.
So if the soup is right in front of you, being served to you, or you are pointing to it nearby, esta is the natural choice.
Yes, very often.
With food, rico/a is one of the most common everyday adjectives for saying something tastes good.
Examples:
It can also have other meanings in other contexts, such as wealthy or rich, but with food it very commonly means tasty/delicious.
Roughly like this:
ES-ta SO-pa es-TA muy RI-ca
A few useful points:
So the contrast between esta and está is important both in writing and in pronunciation.