Café con leche, por favor.
Coffee with milk, please.
A neighbor who only stopped by is already ordering in the kitchen: coffee with milk. After con, leche needs no article.
From Paranoia · Spanish audio
Spanish vocabularyA1 · Beginner
How to say "milk" in Spanish
la leche
nounfeminineusually singular
"Milk" in Spanish is la leche. It's feminine even though it ends in -e, and after con it drops the article: café con leche is coffee with milk.
Hear "leche" in real movie scenes
A coffee order and a drink in the cockpit. Each video starts and stops on that line.
¿Leche?
Milk?
Drinks come around in the cockpit before takeoff, and the pick is a harmless glass of milk. One word with question marks works as a whole question.
Milk at the café and the store
Six phrases for ordering a drink or reading a carton.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| café con leche | coffee with milk |
| un vaso de leche | a glass of milk |
| leche entera | whole milk |
| leche desnatada / leche descremada | skim milk |
| leche sin lactosa | lactose-free milk |
| leche de avena | oat milk |
Tip: On a carton in Spain, skim milk says desnatada. In Latin America the same milk is descremada.
Grammar: la leche, con leche
Four things to know before you order.
Feminine, ending in -e
The ending hides the gender. It's la leche, so adjectives end in -a: la leche fría, leche caliente.Count the container
Milk is a mass noun: un poco de leche, mucha leche. To count it, count what holds it: un vaso de leche, un litro de leche.No article after con or sin
té con leche, café sin leche. The article comes back when you mean a specific milk: La leche está en la nevera.The ch sound
ch sounds like the ch in cheese, and the final e is a clear eh: LEH-cheh.Example sentences
Sentences from the Wordy Spanish course. Tap to listen.
Bebo un café con leche.
I'm drinking a coffee with milk.
Tomo té con leche.
I have tea with milk.
Café con leche, por favor.
Coffee with milk, please.
¿Con leche y caramelo para Miranda?
With milk and caramel for Miranda?
Common mistakes
Mistakes learners make with this word, and how to fix them.
✗el leche
✓la leche
Leche is feminine. Many nouns ending in -e are masculine, so this one has to be learned with its article.
✗café con la leche (ordering)
✓café con leche
When you order a drink, con goes straight to the noun with no article.
✗LETCH (pronunciation)
✓LEH-cheh
Leche has two syllables. Say the final e.
Practice: 3 quick exercises
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1 of 3 · Watch and choose
What do you hear in the video?
The other 32 exercises on this topic are in the app.
How to remember it
You may know dulce de leche, the caramel made by cooking milk with sugar. The leche in its name is the milk.
Questions about "milk" in Spanish
How do you say milk in Spanish?
La leche, pronounced LEH-cheh with two syllables.
Is leche masculine or feminine?
Feminine: la leche, la leche fría. The -e ending doesn't tell you, so learn it with the article.
How do you say coffee with milk in Spanish?
Café con leche, with no article after con. Tea with milk is té con leche.
How do you say skim milk in Spanish?
Leche desnatada in Spain and leche descremada in Latin America. Whole milk is leche entera in both.
