It’s time to disentangle two more similar-looking and potentially confusable Spanish nouns. These are cinto (masculine) and cinta (feminine).
You can listen to the pronunciation of cinto here:
More commonly called un cinturón, un cinto is a belt that you put around your waist and which is fastened by means of a buckle, strings or a clasp. It may be made of leather or cloth, for example:
Todos llevan pistolas al cinto o tienen fusiles en casa.
They all carry guns in their belts or have rifles at home.
Cinta (feminine) is a much more common word than cinto. You can listen to how it’s pronounced here:
Una cinta can be a strip of fabric which is used for tying round something, lacing it or adorning it. In other words, it’s a ribbon:
bonitas cajas de chocolates atadas con cintas de colores
lovely boxes of chocolates tied with coloured ribbons
cartas de amor atadas con una cinta de seda
love letters tied with a silk ribbon
Envían a algún alto representante a cortar la cinta de inauguración.
They send some high-ranking representative to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony.
Cinta can also be a strip of some other flexible material, such as paper, cellulose or plastic. In this case, it usually translates as tape. Just like tape, cinta is also used to refer to the magnetic tape used to record sounds or moving images:
la cinta de embalaje
packing tape
Me dio un trozo de cinta aislante.
He gave me a piece of insulating tape.
una cinta de video
a videotape
Las cintas registran fragmentos de conversaciones.
The tapes record fragments of conversation.
Join us again next week as we unravel the differences between some more similar-looking Spanish nouns.
