10 Spanish Riddles That Stretch Your Brain and Serve Up Delicious Lessons
A box without hinges, key or lid—yet golden treasure inside is hid.
What’s the answer?
An egg!
Liked that? We have even more delicious, food-themed riddles for your entertainment and educational pleasure–all in Spanish.
Riddles make for tricky brain teasers in any language, and these Spanish riddles will have you thinking outside the box while practicing your language skills.
All of the answers are at the bottom of the page—how many can you solve without looking?
Contents
- 1. Negra por dentro, negra por fuera, es mi corazón negra madera.
- 2. Ave me llaman a veces y es llana mi condición.
- 3. Tengo algo en mi mano. Oro no es. Plata no es. ¿Qué es?
- 4. Una cajita chiquita, blanca como la cal: todos la saben abrir, nadie la sabe cerrar.
- 5. Fríos, muy fríos estamos y con nuestros sabores a los niños animamos.
- 6. Cuanto más caliente, más fresco y crujiente.
- 7. Blanca por dentro, verde por fuera. Si quieres que te lo diga, espera.
- 8. La mujer del quesero, ¿qué será?
- 9. No toma té, ni toma café, y está colorado, dime: ¿quién es?
- 10. Tengo cabeza redonda, sin nariz, ojos ni frente, y mi cuerpo se compone tan sólo de blancos dientes.
- Your Spanish Riddle Answers
- And One More Thing…
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
1. Negra por dentro, negra por fuera, es mi corazón negra madera.
English: Black on the inside, black on the outside, my heart is black wood.
This is a great starter riddle because it translates pretty seamlessly into English. Remember, we’re talking about food here.
Dissect this riddle line by line. All of the answers are at the bottom, but don’t you dare peek yet! You can solve this one. Write down your guess and check with my answers once you’ve finished all of the riddles.
2. Ave me llaman a veces y es llana mi condición.
English: Sometimes they call me bird and it’s obvious why.
In this case, English didn’t help us much at all. Take a look at this riddle really closely. Do you see how the ll is repeated multiple times? That’s a clue that your answer has an ll in it.
Now, since this riddle is about food, not birds, you can also assume that ave is a clue too. I won’t help you anymore or I’ll ruin the fun on this one.
3. Tengo algo en mi mano. Oro no es. Plata no es. ¿Qué es?
English: I have something in my hand. It isn’t gold. It isn’t silver. What is it?
Spoiler alert, it isn’t bronze. The answer is in the riddle.
In Spanish, there are a lot of words that look alike and sound alike but have completely different meanings. The answer is literally written in the riddle. Start combining and pulling apart words to see if it makes another word in Spanish.
4. Una cajita chiquita, blanca como la cal: todos la saben abrir, nadie la sabe cerrar.
English: A little box, as white as plaster: everyone knows how to open it, no one knows how to close it.
I’m not going to give you any clues on this one. I mean, I’ve actually already given you a clue about it if you were paying close attention. Unlike some of the others, the answer isn’t written in the riddle. Think outside the box, pun definitely intended.
5. Fríos, muy fríos estamos y con nuestros sabores a los niños animamos.
English: Cold, we’re very cold, and with our flavors, we excite the children.
Like riddle #4, there’s no real key to cracking this one. Just take a look at the hints and read it over in English. This is a great example of a riddle that works in multiple languages because it doesn’t depend on specific grammatical or vernacular clues.
6. Cuanto más caliente, más fresco y crujiente.
English: The hotter it is, the fresher and crunchier it is.
This is a great example of a word with double meaning. Fresco in Spanish can mean “fresh” or “crisp.” In this case, crisp usually refers to the weather (the crisp air).
Fresco is usually used to describe if the air is a little brisk or cooler. So, in Spanish, this riddle is playing on the juxtaposition between caliente (hot) and fresco (crisp). But that’s where the hint lies.
7. Blanca por dentro, verde por fuera. Si quieres que te lo diga, espera.
English: White on the inside, green on the outside. If you want, I’ll tell you what it is, wait.
This riddle may seem like it’s missing something since it tells you to wait at the end, but it isn’t. Everything you need is right in front of you.
Like riddle #3, try playing around with the different words. Really dig deep, this one is sneaky. Once you find it, if you’re like me, you’ll feel very victorious and clever. This is a great one to tell native speakers, it’s just that sneaky!
8. La mujer del quesero, ¿qué será?
English: The wife of the cheesemaker, who is she?
This may be my favorite riddle because there are a few ways to solve it. The first hint is this: remember that genders are different in Spanish.
The second hint is the one I keep repeating: put words together and pull words apart. I also really happen to like the subject of this particular riddle (cheesemakers), so maybe that’s why it’s my favorite.
9. No toma té, ni toma café, y está colorado, dime: ¿quién es?
English: It doesn’t drink tea, nor coffee, and it’s colored, tell me: who is it?
This riddle almost doubles as a tongue twister with all of the T noises in that first line. As a matter of fact, why don’t you read it aloud like a tongue twister? Read it as fast as you can. Faster. Faster. Do you hear the answer now?
10. Tengo cabeza redonda, sin nariz, ojos ni frente, y mi cuerpo se compone tan sólo de blancos dientes.
English: I have a round head, without a nose, eyes or forehead, and my body is made only of white teeth.
This is another riddle that works well in English and Spanish. You can make your friends scratch their heads in two languages with this one. What’s a fruit made completely of white teeth? That sounds dangerous to me.
It helps to know that diente in Spanish typically refers to one small unit of the mysterious “fruit” in question.
Your Spanish Riddle Answers
1. Aceituna (Olive)
2. Avellana (Hazelnut)
The riddle uses the words ave and llana which are the two words found embedded within avellana.
3. Plátano (Plantain/Banana)
Plantains have nothing to do with gold or silver. But when you combine the words plata and no, you get to plantain. Who would’ve thought?
4. Huevo (Egg)
5. Helado (Ice Cream)
6. Pan (Bread)
7. Pera (Pear)
Espera, as I mentioned above, means “wait.” But es pera means “it is a pear.” Told you this one was sneaky.
8. Quesera (Cheese dish or cheesemaker)
The wife of the quesero naturally would be a quesera.
The other way to solve this riddle is like the pear riddle. Qué será means “what is it?” (or in this context, “who is she?”) but it’s also your answer when smashed together as quesera.
9. Tomate (Tomato)
Like the others, you reach this answer by throwing two words together. Toma té, when smushed into one word, leads you to tomate.
10. Ajo (Garlic)
Now you have a better understanding of how Spanish riddles are often put together. Go out searching for other riddles and their answers. You can even look at language learning like a riddle to be solved, to make it more fun and engaging. Programs like FluentU make this easy by using entertaining content to teach Spanish.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
Keep your brain hard at work (and play), and your Spanish will improve faster than ever before!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing…
If you've made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish with engaging material and will then love FluentU.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:
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Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
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