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Nosotros cenamos sopa o ensalada.

Nosotros cenamos sopa o ensalada.
We have soup or salad for dinner.
From Lesson 35:Conjunctions (y, o, pero)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Nosotros cenamos sopa o ensalada.

nosotros
we
cenar
to have dinner
o
or
la sopa
the soup
la ensalada
the salad

Questions & Answers about Nosotros cenamos sopa o ensalada.

Why is there no word for "have" or "for dinner" in the Spanish sentence?
In Spanish, meals are often expressed as their own verbs rather than using a word for "to have" plus a noun. Cenamos comes from the verb cenar, which means "to have dinner." So, Nosotros cenamos completely covers "We have for dinner."
The word for "or" is just o. Is it always just a single letter?
Most of the time, yes! You will use o for "or" in almost all cases, just like in sopa o ensalada. The only exception is if the next word starts with an "o" or "ho" sound, where it changes to u so the sounds don't blend together.
Could I drop the word Nosotros and just say Cenamos sopa o ensalada?
Yes, absolutely! In Spanish, the ending of the verb tells you who is doing the action. Since cenamos ends in "-mos", it already means "we have dinner". Including Nosotros is optional and just adds a bit of emphasis.
Why isn't it la sopa o la ensalada?
Because we are talking about an unspecified amount of food. Just like in English, when you talk about eating a type of food in general without specifying exactly which bowl of soup or plate of salad, you don't need to use definite articles like la (the).

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