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¿Comes pasta o arroz?

¿Comes pasta o arroz?
Do you eat pasta or rice?
From Lesson 35:Conjunctions (y, o, pero)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of ¿Comes pasta o arroz?

comer
to eat
el arroz
the rice
o
or
la pasta
the pasta

Questions & Answers about ¿Comes pasta o arroz?

The word o means "or" here. Does it ever change its spelling?
Most of the time, no! The word o is the standard Spanish word for "or". However, if the word immediately following it starts with an "o" or "ho" sound, the o changes to u so the two sounds don't blend together. Since arroz starts with an "a" sound, we just use the normal o.
The English translation says "Do you eat", but I don't see a word for "do" in Spanish. Why?
Spanish doesn't use helping verbs like "do" or "does" to ask questions. Instead, you just use the main verb (comes) and frame it as a question with your tone of voice and question marks. So, ¿Comes...? translates directly to "Do you eat...?" or "Are you eating...?".
How does the sentence know I'm talking to "you" if the word tú isn't there?
In Spanish, the verb ending tells you who is doing the action. Comes is the tú (informal "you") form of the verb comer (to eat). Because the ending already means "you", including the word tú is completely optional. You could ask ¿Tú comes pasta o arroz?, but dropping the pronoun is very common and natural.
Why isn't it la pasta or el arroz?
Just like in English, when you are talking generally about consuming an uncountable type of food, you can leave out the definite articles (el or la). You are asking if they eat "pasta" or "rice" in general, not "the specific pasta" that is sitting on the table.

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