tortilla de patatas
“tortilla de patatas” — potato omelette in Spanish. Noun, level A1, topic — food and drink. The Mexican tortilla is a different thing altogether: over there it's a corn flatbread. In a live sentence: “Un pincho de tortilla de patatas” — A wedge of potato omelette. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 186 words in the set “food and drink” in the Spanish course.
In short
| Written in Spanish | tortilla de patatas |
| Translation | potato omelette |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
- tortilla de patataspotato omelette
What it is
A thick omelette of potatoes fried in olive oil, flipped onto a plate and served in wedges, hot or cold. The question of whether onion goes in genuinely splits the country in two.
This word does not reduce to a translation: the thing it names is not part of everyday life here, so a “translation” would end up a description in brackets. The easiest way to learn it is together with its surroundings — where you meet it and what it is for.
Why it looks that way
The Mexican tortilla is a different thing altogether: over there it's a corn flatbread
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Un pincho de tortilla de patatasA wedge of potato omelette
Nearby words: food and drink
A menu, a market, a shop sign, the question “what is this?”. Food is the most frequent subject of the first weeks and the safest excuse to start talking.
- el cafécoffeeBoth the drink and the place that serves it. El is the masculine article — it also tells you the gender
- el téteaEl té with the accent is tea; te without it is 'you' as an object. The third pair after sí/si and tú/tu
- el aguawaterThe word is feminine, but it takes the article el — simply easier to say before the stressed a
- el panbreadThe root of panadería, 'bakery' — the sign everyone hunts for each morning
- el quesocheeseThe qu is a plain k with a silent u: KEH-soh. The root of quesadilla, the cheese-filled flatbread
- la carnemeatMeat of any kind. The kinds are built by description: carne de vacuno is beef, carne de cerdo is pork
- el pescadofishThe fish on your plate is el pescado, literally 'the caught one'; the fish in the water is el pez. Two words where English has one
- la frutafruitA collective, so grammatically singular: me gusta la fruta — 'I like fruit'. A single piece is una fruta
- la manzanaappleThe same word means a city block: vive a dos manzanas — 'he lives two blocks away'
- la naranjaorangeBoth the fruit and the color: una camiseta naranja — an orange T-shirt. As a color it never changes for gender
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “food and drink”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “potato omelette” in Spanish?
The Mexican tortilla is a different thing altogether: over there it's a corn flatbread
- How do you say “fish” in Spanish?
The fish on your plate is el pescado, literally 'the caught one'; the fish in the water is el pez. Two words where English has one
- How do you say “water” in Spanish?
The word is feminine, but it takes the article el — simply easier to say before the stressed a
- How do you say “orange” in Spanish?
Both the fruit and the color: una camiseta naranja — an orange T-shirt. As a color it never changes for gender
- How do you say “meat” in Spanish?
Meat of any kind. The kinds are built by description: carne de vacuno is beef, carne de cerdo is pork
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “potato omelette” in Spanish?
«tortilla de patatas». In a live sentence: “Un pincho de tortilla de patatas” — A wedge of potato omelette. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A1, from the set “food and drink”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The Mexican tortilla is a different thing altogether: over there it's a corn flatbread. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.