Severn Spanish

Prepositions I

 

What is a preposition?

A preposition is a word used to describe relationships between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence.

Here are some English prepositions:

above, between, for, behind, under, in front of, on, in, on top of, next to, through

And examples of their use:

They walked past the house.

We climbed onto the bed.

The book is next to the desk.

A final word: make sure you are comfortable with the conjugations of estar before moving on.

 

Prepositions in Spanish

This section will focus on using prepositions with the verb estar to talk about the location of objects. First, however, let’s talk about an important contraction (two words smushed into one): del.

Del is what happens when you mix de (“from” or “of”) with el (“the”). It is important because a lot of other prepositions require the help of de to work right. Whenever you see de and el next to each other, you should mash them together to form del, which means “from the” or “of the.”

Examples:

Estoy delante del escritorio. (“I am in front of the desk.” Notice how the preposition delante works together with de. Because de would be next to el, we can form del.)

La puerta está al lado de la mesa. (“The door is to the side of the chair.” Notice how de cannot combine with the feminine article la, so the two remain separate.)

The easiest way to understand the meaning of various prepositions is to see them at work. Study these pictures and the accompanying sentences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La silla está delante del escritorio. (“The chair is in front of the desk.”)

El libro está encima del escritorio. (“The book is on top of the desk.”)

El escritorio está detrás de la silla. (“The desk is behind the chair.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La puerta está a la izquierda del sacapuntas. (“The door is to the left of the pencil sharpener.”)

El estante está al lado de la puerta. (“The shelf is next to the door.”)

El libro verde está entre el libro anaranjado y el libro morado. (“The green book is between the orange book and the purple book.”)

La mochila está delante de la puerta. (“The backpack is in front of the door.”)

 

In Context

Listing off the locations of everything in a room is cool and all, but not the most practical thing. Frequently, you will need to use prepositions to ask about where something is, or to answer someone else’s questions about where that pesky pencil ran off to. To do those things, you need to know a little bit about question structure in Spanish. First, look at a normal sentence.

Los libros están en el estante. (“The books are on the shelf.”)

1. Identify the subject and verb.

Subject: los libros

Verb: están

2. Now, take a look at this question. (Hint: ¿Dónde? means “Where?”)

¿Dónde están los libros?

The subject and verb are exactly the same as in the normal sentence, but in the question, their order flips. The verb comes first, and then the subject. This is actually just like in English.

Where are the books?

The books are on the shelf.

Notice how the subject and verb switch places: in the question, the verb comes first; in the statement, the subject does. This is how questions in Spanish usually work: verb, then subject. For more about question structure, see Questions I: Structure, or Questions I/II: Q-Words. For now we will focus on using ¿Dónde? and our prepositions. Here is the basic formula:

 

 

 

Answering a question like this is pretty simple. Just flip the order of the subject and the verb — the verb is already conjugated for you — and add the location with a preposition.

Examples:

¿Dónde están las manzanas?

Las manzanas están encima del libro.

¿Dónde está la profesora?

La profesora está delante del escritorio.

¿Dónde está el sacapuntas?

El sacapuntas está al lado del estante.

Next topics:

Quick reference: