Prepositions are useful tools for joining different words, clauses, or phrases. In Spanish, they can connect nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, or verbs to nouns/pronouns. Spanish has dozens of commonly used prepositions, which are presented in the following table. But before you start tossing prepositions into your Spanish sentences, you should know how they fit into different sentence types.
The following examples illustrate how prepositions work in various sentences:
Noun to noun: Necesito esa hoja de papel. (I need that piece of paper.)
Verb to verb: El niño empieza a reír. (The child begins to laugh.)
Verb to noun: Ella estudia con sus amigas. (She studies with her friends.)
Verb to pronoun: ¿Qué piensas de ellos? (What do you think about them?)
You use prepositions before the names of geographical locations to refer to travel and location:
Mi familia está en Puerto Rico. (My family is in Puerto Rico.)
Voy a España. (I’m going to Spain.)
And now, here are the prepositions and prepositional phrases you’ll encounter most in Spanish.
Preposition | Meaning | Preposition | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
A | to, at | detrás de | behind |
a eso de (+ time) | at about (time) | durante | during |
a fuerza de | by persevering | en | in, on, by |
a pesar de | in spite of | en cambio | on the other hand |
a tiempo | on time | en casa de | at the house of |
a través (de) | across, through | en lugar de | instead of |
acerca de | About | en vez de | instead of |
además de | Besides | encima de | above, on top of |
alrededor de | Around | enfrente de | opposite, in front of |
antes (de) | before | entre | between |
cerca de | near | frente a | in front of |
con | with | fuera de | outside of |
contra | against | hacia | toward |
de | of, from, about | hasta | until |
de otro modo | otherwise | lejos de | far |
debajo de | beneath, under | por | for, by |
delante de | in front of | para | for |
dentro de | inside, within | según | according to |
desde | since | sin | without |
después (de) | after | sobre | over, above, on, upon |