Lesson 38. With sugar, without sugar

Con and sin

Javier is a cook, but in this scene he also takes Lucía’s order at the bar.

Con means “with,” sin means “without”:

• un café con leche — a coffee with milk;
• sin azúcar — without sugar;
• ¿Con pollo o sin pollo? — with chicken or without?

For an unspecified ingredient, use sin without an article: sin azúcar, sin hielo. An article can appear when you mean a specific thing.

Conmigo and contigo

With con, “me” and “you” have special forms. Learn them as whole words:

conmigo	with me
contigo	with you

Everyone else is regular: con él, con ella, con usted, con nosotros.

• ¿Vas al cine conmigo? — Will you go to the movies with me?
• Sí, voy contigo. — Yes, I’ll go with you.

Words in this lesson

We use el azúcar here. Azúcar can also be feminine (la azúcar); both forms are valid.

Las patatas fritas can be fries or potato chips from a bag. In some Latin American countries people say papas instead of patatas: papas fritas.

El pollo is chicken as food.