What’s in store for you today: Prepositions
Today’s goals are:
Learning the prepositions in Spanish and how to use them
Learning some common verb / preposition combinations
Listen to track 1.3.1
Maria, where are you?
I’m at the store with Rosa.
Who is Rosa?
She’s my friend from university / college.
Oh, the woman with blond hair?
No, she has dark hair.
Do I know her?
Yes, you met her at Pablo’s party.
Oh, yeah. I remember. Where are you going after the store?
We’re going to Rosa’s house. She lives next to your apartment. Do you want to come?
Yes! But before seeing you guys, I have a few things to do. We’ll see each other in a half hour?
Prepositions can be used to define, identify, and explain. They may be small, but they’re huge in terms of how frequently they are used and how big an impact they can have on a sentence.
Today, let’s learn more about this very useful part of speech!
Las preposiciones – The prepositions
Prepositions in Spanish work the same way as in English. They form connections and relations between different elements in a sentence. If we look at the dialogue above, we can see that we use them to say:
They help us specify, define, or clarify things. You’ll notice, that each preposition in the examples above is followed by an object (“the woman with blonde hair” or “you met her at Pablo’s party”). That object, combined with the preposition, is the prepositional phrase.
En – In, at, on
Listen to track 1.3.2
En is possibly one of the most used prepositions in Spanish. It can present a small problem for English speakers, though. Let’s look at what it means:
| Spanish | English | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| En | In, on, at | Estoy en clase. |
| Está en la mesa. | ||
| Estoy en la casa de mi tío. |
The “in” and “on” meanings are pretty clear. The problems arise with the “at” meaning. Often times, English speakers want to use “a” to mean “at” (for location). Don’t do this! Resist the temptation!
Common Prepositions in Spanish:
Listen to track 1.3.3
In addition to en which we’ve already seen, you will also commonly hear/see the following prepositions in Spanish:
| Spanish | English | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| A | To, at (for time) | Voy a la tienda. (I’m going to the store.) Estaré allí a las tres. (I’ll be there at 3:00.) |
| Antes de* | Before | Debes estirar antes de hacer ejercicio. (You should stretch before doing exercise.) |
| Cerca de | Near | Estamos cerca de tu casa. (We are near your house.) |
| Con | With | Ella está con sus padres. (She is with her parents.) |
| De | Of, from (indicating possession) | ¿Qué piensas de la película nueva? (What do you think of the new movie?) Soy de los Estados Unidos. (I am from the USA.) Estamos en la casa de María. (We are at Maria’s house.) |
| Dentro de | Inside | Mi coche está dentro del garaje. (My car is inside the garage.) |
| Desde | Since, from | No he estado allí desde hace un mes. (I haven’t been there since a month ago / for a month). Tiró la pelota desde aquí. (He threw the ball from here.) |
| Después de* | After | Después de clase, voy a estudiar. (After class, I’m going to study.) |
| Detrás de | Behind | El pan está detrás de los huevos. (The bread is behind the eggs.) |
| Durante | During | Durante el vuelo, dormí. (During the flight, I slept.) |
| Encima de | On top of | La sal está encima de la mesa. (The salt is on top of the table.) |
| Enfrente de | Opposite (across from) | Quedamos enfrente de la biblioteca. (We’ll meet across from the library). *Note: This is another one that usually trips up English speakers since it sounds like our version of “in front of”. If you want to say “We’ll meet in front of the library” it would be Quedamos en (at) la biblioteca. |
| Entre | Between, among | Entre nosotros, no me gusta el profe de inglés. (Between us, I don’t like the English teacher.) Hay un traidor entre nosotros. (There’s a traitor among us.) |
| Fuera de | Outside | Los servicios están fuera de la estación. (The restrooms are outside the station.) |
| Hasta | Until | No llegaré hasta las seis. (I won’t arrive until 6:00). |
| Para | For, in order to | Compré el regalo para ti. (I bought the gift for you.) Para aprender español, tienes que estudiar mucho. (In order to learn Spanish, you have to study a lot.) |
| Por | For, by, through | Le damos gracias por su paciencia. (We are grateful for your patience.) El Quijote fue escrito por Cervantes. (Quixote was written by Cervantes.) Tenemos que pasar por el parque para llegar a la escuela. (We have to pass through the park in order to get to the school.) |
| Sin | Without | No puedo vivir sin ti. (I can’t live without you.) |
| Sobre | Over, about | El avión vuela sobre el océano. (The plane flies over the ocean.) El libro es sobre la Guerra Civil. (The book is about the Civil War.) |
These two expressions (antes de and después de) when used with a verb will be followed by an infinitive. Antes de salir de casa, me tengo que duchar (Before leaving the house, I have to shower). Después de volver a casa, veo la televisión (After returning home, I watch TV).
Verb / Preposition Combinations
Like in English, a lot of verbs in Spanish will be paired with specific prepositions. Some are simple, some are not. First, let’s take some time to look at verbs that do not take prepositions in Spanish, even though they do in English.
Verbs without Prepositions
Here are some examples of these verbs in use:
| Tienes que mirar más fijamente. | You have to look more closely. |
| Escucho música cada día en el camino a clase. | I listen to music every day on the walk to class. |
| ¿Qué buscas? Busco mi libro de texto. | What are you looking for? I’m looking for my textbook. |
| Siempre pido lo mismo. | I always ask for the same thing. |
| Espero el autobús. | I’m waiting for the bus. |
| No suelo comer después de las ocho de la noche. | I don’t tend to eat after eight at night. |
| Intentamos encontrar su gato. | We are trying to find his/her cat. |
| ¡Siempre olvidas traer la tarea! | You always forget to bring the homework! |
Now, you may have a question forming in your mind right about now. Sometime in the last lesson, we talked about the Personal “A.” Now, even though “a” is a preposition in Spanish, and we just talked about all these verbs that don’t take prepositions in Spanish, we need to remind ourselves that the Personal “A” isn’t really a preposition. It’s a signal word, letting us know that we’re talking about a person.
That means that if one of the verbs listed above is followed by a person, we will still need the Personal “A”.
| Busco a mi madre | I’m looking for my mom. |
| Espero a mis amigos | I’m waiting for my friends. |
| Pido al camarero el agua | I order water from the waiter / I ask the waiter for water. |
Note: “A” as a preposition means “to” or “at” (“at” for time). However, in the sentences above, we don’t have the words “to” or “at.” That’s because we’re using the Personal “A” and not the preposition.
Verbs with prepositions
Let’s look now at verbs in Spanish that do take prepositions.
Un poco más… por si quieres saber más del tema
More verb / preposition combinations
Getting a little tricky…
There are some verb / preposition combinations that can cause some trouble (especially for English speakers). This is because the preposition being used is not the same as the one we would normally use in English.
Here are some of those. Make sure you make a note of them!
Listen to track 1.3.7
This is a “reflexive verb.” We will look a little more at how to use them in the future.
A Quick Recap of this Lesson
Today was a vocab heavy day! We learned about prepositions. And, obviously, in order to learn about prepositions, we had to learn the prepositions. The list was quite long. Here are some highlights:
| En | In, at, on |
| A | to |
| Dentro | Inside |
| Debajo | Under |
| Desde | Since |
| Con | With |
| De | From |
| Hasta | Until |
| Sin | Without |
We also talked about verbs that do and don’t use prepositions:
Without-
| Mirar | To look at |
| Escuchar | To listen to |
| Buscar | To look for |
| Pedir | To order / to ask for |
| Esperar | To wait for / to hope for |
| Decidir | To decide on |
| Soler | To tend to / to be accustomed to |
| Intentar | To try to |
| Olvidar | to forget to |
With-
| Acabar de | To have just |
| Volver a | To come / go back to |
| Hacer bien en | To do well |
| Insistir en | To insist on |
| Quedar en | To agree to |
| Comenzar con/por | To begin with |
| Ayudar a | To help |
| Llamar a | To call |
| Dejar de | To stop / to give up |
Sharpen Your Knowledge with Exercises
Exercise 1
Exercise 2
Une la preposición con su significado en inglés. (Match the preposition with its meaning in English.)
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