Learn Spanish (Latin America): Los pájaros comen pan.

Los pájaros comen pan.

The birds eat bread.

Breakdown of Los pájaros comen pan.

the (masculine plural)

el pájaro

the bird

Questions & Answers about Los pájaros comen pan.

If I just want to say "Birds eat bread" in general, why do I need Los?

In English, we usually drop the word "the" when talking about things in general. In Spanish, when a general noun is the subject of the sentence (the one doing the action), you still must use the definite article. Since pájaro (bird) is masculine, we use the masculine plural article los to match it.

Why isn't there an el before pan?

Even though Spanish requires articles for general subjects, you can often leave them out after a verb when talking about an unspecified amount of something. Here, comen pan means they eat some bread. If you said comen el pan, it would change the meaning to say they are eating the specific bread (like the loaf you just left on the table!).

Why is there an accent mark on the first "a" in pájaros?

The accent mark tells you exactly where to put your vocal stress. Without it, the standard rules of Spanish pronunciation would make you stress the second-to-last syllable (pa-JA-ros). The written accent overrides this rule, telling you to stress the first syllable instead: PA-ja-ros.

Why does the verb comer change to comen here?