Learn Spanish (Latin America): El niño bebe jugo en el almuerzo.

El niño bebe jugo en el almuerzo.

The boy drinks juice at lunch.

Breakdown of El niño bebe jugo en el almuerzo.

Questions & Answers about El niño bebe jugo en el almuerzo.

Why does the verb end in "-e" in bebe?

The infinitive (dictionary form) of the verb is beber (to drink). It is a regular "-er" verb. Because the subject of our sentence is el niño (he), we drop the "-er" ending and add "-e" to make bebe. If you were talking about yourself, you would drop the "-er" and add "-o" to say yo bebo (I drink).

Why isn't there an el before jugo?

When you are talking about an unspecified amount of a substance (like saying "juice" instead of "the juice"), Spanish often drops the article just like English does. If he were drinking a specific glass of juice you both already knew about, it would be bebe el jugo.

Why does the sentence say en el almuerzo instead of just en almuerzo for "at lunch"?

In Spanish, you generally need to use a definite article (el or la) with the names of meals like el almuerzo (lunch), el desayuno (breakfast), or la cena (dinner) after a preposition. Also, notice that the preposition en (which often means "in" or "on") is used here to mean "at".

Could I use the verb tomar instead of beber here?