What is the difference between cenar and tomar?
I'm very confused. My spanish teacher told me that you can "Toma el desayuno y el almuerzo." However why not dinner? Why is it "Cena" for eat dinner?
5 Answers
Hi, welcome to the forum.
While your teacher is certainly correct, thre is also another way to express eating a meal.
Tomar can mean to have (as in food, drink).
Ella va a tomar una bebida. =She is going to have a drink.
Or in your example ,"Toma el desayuno y el almuerzo." can translate to "Have breakfast and lunch."
However, to express eating a meal, we can use 3 other verbs: Desayunar: To have/eat breakfast. Almorzar: to have/eat lunch Cenar: to have/eat dinner.
I'm not so sure why "cena" wasn't included in that sentence, however. But I believe that it's moe common to use the 3 "meal" verbs over "tomar."
Please correct me if I am wrong here.
In Southern Spain I've hardly ever heard almorzar either.
'Han comido?' means have you had lunch ? ( pural)
This is mostly at about 3 pm.
¿Quieres tomar algo? would to me mean, would you like a drink, or maybe a light snack. Can be asked at any time of night or day.. Obviously these things vary with the location.
In Baja California Sur Mexico they use desayunar and cenar but not so much almorzar. To eat lunch is comer comida. I think there are probably a lot of regional differences in this. Also interesting is the time of the various meals. Desayuno is generally around 10 or 11 in the morning, lunch is between 2 and 4 in the afternoon and dinner is after 8 in the evening. It took me a while to adjust to eating breakfast so late.
¿Qué vamos a tomar para la cena? What are we going to have for dinner? is what I say to my wife. He cenado ya = I have already had my dinner. ¿Y vosotros? ¿Habéis cenado ya? and you? (plural) Have you had your dinner yet?
It;s because, there's no specific verb for ''desayuno'' or ''almuerzo'', well, there's verb ''almorzar' equally to verb ''cenar'' for diner, I can say that this is the correct Spanish, as language, thus correct Spanish.. as ''idiom expressions'' somehow, for saying directly ''cenar'', also in other languages, it's the same, but also, as we said, there's verb''almorzar'', thus ''have lunch'',a nd ''cenar'' for ''have dinner''..Unlike English that is ''have dinner'' in Spanish verb ''cenar'' from ''cena''=dinner, and ''tomar desayuno'' or ''tomar almuerxo'', is phrasal verbs in Spanish as such, ''cenar'' may be, is stronger, in terms of linguistics and philosophy of language, as ''dinner;=la cena is the Last meal of the day..Hope I explained somehow..Thanks!
