El pimentón le da mucho sabor a las patatas.

Dar sabor a algo is a very common expression meaning to give flavor to something.

The parts of the sentence are:

• El pimentón = the thing that gives flavor
• da = gives
• mucho sabor = a lot of flavor
• a las patatas = to the potatoes

So the literal structure is: The paprika gives a lot of flavor to the potatoes.

Le is an indirect object pronoun. Here it means to it / to them, and it refers to las patatas.

Spanish often uses both:

• the pronoun: le / les
• and the full noun phrase: a las patatas

So the sentence repeats the indirect object in a way that is very normal in Spanish.

In careful standard Spanish, many teachers and grammar books would prefer les, because las patatas is plural:

El pimentón les da mucho sabor a las patatas.

However, in everyday speech, you may also hear le used with a plural indirect object. So the sentence you were given is something you could hear, especially in informal language, but les is the safer textbook form.

This a marks the indirect object, not the personal a.

With dar, Spanish uses the pattern:

dar algo a alguien/algo
= to give something to someone/something

Here:

• mucho sabor is what is given
• a las patatas is what receives it

So a las patatas means to the potatoes.

Because sabor is a masculine singular noun, so mucho has to agree with it:

• mucho sabor = correct
• mucha sabor = incorrect

Here mucho means a lot of, and it matches sabor grammatically.

In this sentence, sabor is being used as an uncountable idea, like flavor in English.

So:

• mucho sabor = a lot of flavor

If you said muchos sabores, that would mean many flavors, which is a different idea.

Because this is Spain Spanish. In Spain, patatas is the usual word. In many parts of Latin America, papas is more common.

So for Spanish from Spain, las patatas sounds natural.

Yes. That sentence is also correct and natural.

Spanish often doubles the indirect object by using both:

• a pronoun (le/les)
• and the full phrase (a las patatas)

So both of these are possible:

• El pimentón da mucho sabor a las patatas.
• El pimentón les da mucho sabor a las patatas.

The version with the pronoun is very common in natural Spanish.

Yes. Spanish word order is fairly flexible. For example, you could also hear:

• El pimentón les da mucho sabor a las patatas.
• A las patatas el pimentón les da mucho sabor.

The first one is the most neutral. Changing the order usually adds emphasis or makes one part of the sentence feel more prominent.

The stress is on the last syllable because of the accent mark:

pi-men-TÓN

And patatas is pronounced:

pa-TA-tas

In Spain Spanish, the pronunciation is clear and crisp, with the stressed syllables on -tón and -ta- respectively.