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Both "Sopas de Letras" and "Sopa de Letras" translate to Word Search (literarly "word soup").

Because "Sopas de Letras" contains an 's' after 'sopa' it can be considered plural. So "Sopas de Letras" would be many Word Searches, while "Sopa de Letras" would be a single word search.

However, when I search on Amazon for "Sopas de letras", the majority of the word search books use "Sopa de Letras", even though they contain more than one word search. Similar results can be found on Google Books when using Spanish language and the same with Google Ngram when using Spanish.

Why is this?

Also, would it be incorrect or sound strange to title a book of Word Searches "Sopas De Letras" instead of "Sopa De Letras"? Same with "Sopas de números" and "Sopa de números": Would the use of "S" to make it plural sound strange?

I am a beginner Spanish learner, so would appreciate simplified explanations.

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    It is weird that the books are titled that way, as indeed "sopas de letras" is the correct way to refer to more than one "word search" puzzles. I guess it is a matter of style: there also do not seem to be many English books titled "Word Searches" in plural...
    – wimi ♦
    Oct 7, 2020 at 12:20
  • @wimi would the same apply to Sopas de números (i.e. would that be the correct way to refer to more than one number search). Thanks!
    – big_smile
    Oct 7, 2020 at 12:44
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    yes. A "sopa de números" seems to be a much less well-known thing, but still, the noun "sopa" must be pluralized. Saying something like "dos sopa de números" would be very weird.
    – wimi ♦
    Oct 7, 2020 at 12:51
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    Agreed with @wimi. A book with crosswords has crucigramas in its title, plural, so sopas de letras should be the proper naming.
    – fedorqui
    Oct 7, 2020 at 13:24

1 Answer 1

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  • "Sopa de letras" is just a unique word search.
  • "Sopas de letras" is a collection of word searches.

The title of a book, Sopa de Letras, in my opinion, may imply that the book is related with the concept, theory, applications, etc. of word searches. However, "Sopas de letras" seems to be a collection or survey of word searches to solve it.

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