Today’s Spanish word of the day is a two for one: “niño” and “niña”.
These words mean “boy” and “girl” respectively.
The plural “los niños” can refer to a group of boys and girls.
According to the Diccionario Etimológico Castellano en Línea, it’s thought that the words niño and niña are onomatopoeic, and come from imitating the sorts of babbling sounds children make when they are learning to speak.
Example sentences
El niño quiere un helado.
The boy wants an ice cream.
La niña está cantando.
The girl is singing.
La niña está emocionada porque mañana es su cumpleaños.
The girl is excited because tomorrow is her birthday.
El niño se cayó pero no se lastimó.
The boy fell down but didn’t get hurt.
Los niños están dibujando en clase.
The children are drawing in class.
El Niño and La Niña
You might have heard of the climate phenomena El Niño and La Niña. They are irregular cycles that affect global temperatures and rainfall, causing droughts in some places and higher rainfall in other places.
The name El Niño originated among Peruvian fishermen, who noticed that the sea tended to warm up around Christmas. The phenomenon was named El Niño after the baby Jesus, who is often referred to as “El Niño Jesús”.
If you’d like to learn more about El Niño and La Niña, here’s a video in Spanish from BBC News Mundo:
