Learn Spanish (Latin America): El guiso no es tan picante como para necesitar leche. - The stew is not spicy enough to need milk.

El guiso no es tan picante como para necesitar leche.

The stew is not spicy enough to need milk.

Breakdown of El guiso no es tan picante como para necesitar leche.

Questions & Answers about El guiso no es tan picante como para necesitar leche.

The English translation says "spicy enough to," but the Spanish uses tan... como para. Why is that?

Literally, no es tan picante como para necesitar translates to "it is not so spicy as to need." In Spanish, the structure tan + [adjective] + como para + [infinitive] is the standard and most natural way to express the threshold of being "[adjective] enough to do something."

Why is the infinitive necesitar used here instead of the subjunctive?

We use the infinitive after como para when there is no change of subject. In this sentence, the stew is both the thing that is not very spicy and the thing that would conceptually "need" the milk. If you wanted to change the subject—for example, to say "not spicy enough for me to need milk"—you would use como para que followed by the subjunctive: como para que yo necesite leche.

Since we're talking about the taste of food, shouldn't it be no está tan picante instead of no es?

You could absolutely use está if you are tasting the stew right now and commenting on its current state ("this particular batch didn't come out very spicy"). However, using es is also perfectly correct here; it suggests that being mild or not-too-spicy is an inherent characteristic of this specific recipe or type of guiso (stew).

Could I use suficientemente instead of this structure to say "enough"?