Learn the many different uses of the Spanish preposition a
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalia: Buenos días, me llamo Natalia. |
| Carlos: What’s going on? My name is Carlos. |
| Natalia: “Can I take a message?” |
| Carlos: Nati, you won’t believe it. Alejandro still hasn’t received an answer. |
| Natalia: Seriously? By then I’ll be already like suing people. Carlos… |
| Carlos: No. And he’s still being amazingly calm about things. |
| Natalia: I don’t think I would be at all. |
| Carlos: Well, Carina is keeping things formal and trying to help him out. |
| Natalia: Good, and today we continue our discussion on prepositions. But this time preposition “a”. |
| Carlos: Let’s get into today’s conversation though. |
| DIALOGUE |
| ALEJANDRO: Señorita, buenos días, se encuentra la doctora. |
| KARINA : No señor, ella no trabaja hoy. |
| ALEJANDRO: Pero yo llamé antes y usted me dijo que la podía encontrar hoy. |
| KARINA: Si gusta, le dejo el mensaje a la doctora que lo llame apenas venga mañana. |
| ALEJANDRO: Sí, por favor, es muy importante. |
| ALEJANDRO: Good morning Miss, is the doctor in? |
| KARINA: No sir, she is not working today. |
| ALEJANDRO: But I called beforehand and you told me that I would be able to meet with her today. |
| KARINA: If you'd like, I will leave a message for the doctor to call you as soon as she gets in tomorrow. |
| ALEJANDRO: Yes please, it's very important. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Natalia: I don't know, man. I don't know. |
| Carlos: I mean this man has been, what, three lessons now, trying to get answers from his tests. |
| Natalia: I know, trying to get to the doctor. |
| Carlos: And he just can't get it. |
| Natalia: I know. |
| Carlos: Is this normal in Costa Rica? |
| Natalia: A little bit, a little bit. It can get a little frustrating, that’s what I'm saying. I said it in the first of these lessons, I said you go to the office and demand. |
| Carlos: That’s true, that’s true. |
| Natalia: That’s my advice. |
| Carlos: That makes sense, that makes sense. Ok, you know what, let’s take a look at the vocabulary for today’s lesson. First we have a pronominal verb. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Natalia: “Encontrarse”. |
| Carlos: “To encounter”, “to run into”, “to meet by chance.” |
| Natalia: “En-con-trar-se”, “encontrarse”. Por ejemplo, “me encontré con un pariente lejano”. |
| Carlos: “I ran into a distant relative.” And now we have a masculine or a feminine noun. |
| Natalia: “Doctor, doctora”. |
| Carlos: “Doctor.” |
| Natalia: “Doc-tor, doc-to-ra”, “doctor, doctora”. Por ejemplo, “él es doctor en física”. |
| Carlos: “He’s a doctor of physics.” And then a verb. |
| Natalia: “Trabajar”. |
| Carlos: “To work.” |
| Natalia: “Tra-ba-jar”, “trabajar”. Por ejemplo, “ellos trabajan en los Estados Unidos”. |
| Carlos: “They work in the United States.” And another masculine noun. |
| Natalia: “Mensaje”. |
| Carlos: “Message.” |
| Natalia: “Men-sa-je”, “mensaje”. Por ejemplo, “deje su mensaje después de oír la señal”. |
| Carlos: “Please leave your message after the tone.” Next up we have an adverb. |
| Natalia: “Apenas”. |
| Carlos: “As soon as”, “no sooner than”, “hardly.” |
| Natalia: “A-pe-nas”, “apenas”. Por ejemplo, “apenas lo conozco”. |
| Carlos: “I hardly knew him.” And finally an adjective, adverb or conjunction. |
| Natalia: “Antes”. |
| Carlos: “Before.” |
| Natalia: “An-tes”, “antes”. Por ejemplo, “llámame antes de irte. Sí, mamá”. |
| Carlos: “Call me before you leave. Yes, mom.” Ok, let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Natalia: The first word we'll look at is “encontrarse”. |
| Carlos: “Encontrarse”. A pronominal verb, right? |
| Natalia: It means “to encounter”, “to run into” or “to meet by chance”. |
| Carlos: Right, like in the conversation, “pero yo llamé antes y usted me dijo que la podía encontrar hoy”. |
| Natalia: “But I just called beforehand and you told me that I would be able to meet with her today.” |
| Carlos: He still can’t meet the doctor. Man, he must be stressing out. |
| Natalia: I sure think so. |
| Carlos: And a sample sentence maybe? |
| Natalia: “No quiero ir a la fiesta porque me voy a encontrar con mi jefe”. |
| Carlos: “I don’t want to go to the party because I don’t want to meet my boss.” Nati, our boss is cool. |
| Natalia: I’ll just avoid that with a related word, “toparse”, “to find” or “to encounter”. |
| Carlos: And then? |
| Natalia: A masculine or feminine noun that is another cognate. |
| Carlos: Which? |
| Natalia: “Doctor, doctora”. |
| Carlos: Oh, that is pretty straight forward. |
| Natalia: Why yes, it is. |
| Carlos: So I think it’s safe to say “doctor, doctora” means “doctor”. |
| Natalia: One of the safest bets you could do. |
| Carlos: And in our conversations? |
| Natalia: “Señorita, buenos días. ¿Se encuentra la doctora?” |
| Carlos: “Good morning, miss. Is the doctor in?” But wait, isn’t there another word for “doctor”? |
| Natalia: Well, you’re thinking “médico o médica”. |
| Carlos: So those are synonyms for doctor. |
| Natalia: Exactly, you could use either. |
| Carlos: So I could say “la cita con el doctor es muy cara”. “The appointment with the doctor is very expensive.” |
| Natalia: Or “la cita con el médico es muy cara”. “The appointment with the doctor is very expensive.” |
| Carlos: Well, thank you for clearing that up. |
| Natalia: Ah, you did a good work, Carlos. I'm so proud of you. |
| Carlos: I smell a verb, “trabajar”. |
| Natalia: “Trabajar” that’s next. That’s a good guess, you know in our conversation the secretary explains “no, señor, ella no trabaja hoy”. |
| Carlos: “No, sir, she doesn’t work today.” |
| Natalia: “Trabajar” is a very common verb that refers to work, but there is another verb that we went through a long time ago in the Costa Rican series. |
| Carlos: What was that? |
| Natalia: Come one, you can remember. If I'm not mistaken, it was lesson number 3. |
| Carlos: You know how I remember that one? Because you talked about [inaudible 00:04:37]. I remember that really well. Ok, reaching back. “Bretear”. |
| Natalia: Right, “bretear”, “to work”, and “brete” for “job”. |
| Carlos: For “trabajo”. |
| Natalia: Exactly. |
| Carlos: Well, now when I hear someone ask “¿dónde trabajas?”, I know they’re asking the very classic boring question of where do I work. |
| Natalia: How boring… |
| Carlos: Nati, no one would ever accuse you of being a traditionalist. |
| Natalia: Note they wouldn’t, but let’s focus on our next word. They say a masculine noun. |
| Carlos: “Mensaje”. |
| Natalia: “Mensaje”, “message”. |
| Carlos: And in our conversation? |
| Natalia: “Le dejó el mensaje a la doctora que lo llame apenas venga mañana”. |
| Carlos: “I will leave a message for the doctor to call you as soon as she gets in tomorrow.” You know how I learned “mensaje”? |
| Natalia: How? |
| Carlos: I learned it to use when I got my cellphone in Costa Rica. “Usted tiene un mensaje nuevo. Para escuchar sus mensajes marque el número 1”. Who records that stuff? |
| Natalia: Well, think of that unexpected example. I don't know, I don’t have a clue. |
| Carlos: I think I should try to record that, I think I’d be good for a cellphone voice. |
| Natalia: In Spanish? |
| Carlos: Yeah, why not? |
| Natalia: Ok, ok. Carlos? |
| Carlos: What’s up? Oh, you want me to [inaudible 00:05:37]. You want me to get some related words. |
| Natalia: Ah, yes. Tell me another word for “mensaje” could be…? |
| Carlos: “Recado”? |
| Natalia: “Recado”. Like if I said “dele un recado a su amiga, por favor”. |
| Carlos: Give a message to your friend, please. |
| Natalia: Now an adverb. “Apenas”. |
| Carlos: “Apenas”. “As soon as”, “no shorter than” and “hardly”. |
| Natalia: Ok, this is another verb that can be used to express a kind of urgency. |
| Carlos: Right, like ASAP, as soon as possible. |
| Natalia: Kind of. I mean you can imagine what Alejandro is going through. I mean there were four lessons and he hasn’t gotten an answer to his request for his test results. |
| Carlos: Which is why it is understandable when Carina tries to make him feel better by saying “si gusta le dejo el mensaje a la doctora que lo llame apenas venga mañana”. |
| Natalia: “If you like I will leave a message for the doctor to call you as soon as she gets in tomorrow.” Do you think she’s dismissing him? |
| Carlos: Oh, I really hope not. I don’t think so though, but she must get a lot of frustrated callers. I mean can you think about any related words? |
| Natalia: Well, I can think about a related phrase. |
| Carlos: Which is? |
| Natalia: “A tiempo”. |
| Carlos: “On time”, “as soon as”, “on time.” That’s a little loose but I can see that. |
| Natalia: Good, because last but not least we have an adjective, adverb or a conjunction. |
| Carlos: “Antes”. |
| Natalia: “Antes”. |
| Carlos: “Antes” is one of those words that you have to remember as a pair. |
| Natalia: What do you mean? |
| Carlos: I mean like when I was learning I coupled basic words like “before” and “after”. |
| Natalia: Ok… |
| Carlos: Now, I knew that “antes” meant “before” and “después” meant “after”. |
| Natalia: How do you remember them? |
| Carlos: Opposites. |
| Natalia: What? |
| Carlos: Well, see, the thing is I knew that “antes” either meant “before” or “after” and so I always tried to remember that it wasn’t my first guess. “Antes” and “after” both begin with A, so I just thought “antes” is the opposite of what I would think off of the top of my head. |
| Natalia: Ah, that’s a good think. |
| Carlos: You know, they come in handy every now and then. Now, how was “antes” used in our conversation today? |
| Natalia: That’s when Alejandro says “pero yo llamé antes y usted me dijo que la podía encontrar hoy”. |
| Carlos: “But I called beforehand and you told me that I would be able to meet with her today.” |
| Natalia: Since you know “antes” already can you come up with a sample sentence? |
| Carlos: Sure, “llegué antes que él”, “I arrived before him.” |
| Natalia: Good, and we already know the related word. |
| Carlos: That’s right. “Antes”, “before”, and “después”, “after”. |
| Natalia: Ok, Carlos, we have to continue our discussion of prepositions. |
| Carlos: Which one did we cover last time again? |
| Natalia: Remember last time we covered seven uses of preposition “de”. |
| Carlos: Right, it’s all coming back to me now. |
| Natalia: And today we’re… isn’t that a song? |
| Carlos: I just thought the same thing. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Natalia: Today we have another preposition that needs a little attention. |
| Carlos: And which one is that? |
| Natalia: The preposition “a”. |
| Carlos: “A”. |
| Natalia: “A”. |
| Carlos: Yeah, that one letter could really use some clarification. I mean, doesn’t it kind of translate to “to”? |
| Natalia: Well, that’s true most of the time but, trust me, there’s a lot more to it. I mean it could also be translated as “on”, “at”, “from”, “by” or “in”, or not translated at all. |
| Carlos: Well, that doesn’t make me feel comfortable. |
| Natalia: Carlos, no se preocupe, that’s why I'm here. Listen, the first preposition “a” can be used to indicate motion. Almost any verb indicating motion, and even nouns, can be followed by “a” before the destination. |
| Carlos: Ok, like do you mean “¿llegamos a Palmares?”, “we arrived at Palmares?” Which, audience, if you don’t know is the absolute best part in Costa Rica if you don’t get a tick. |
| Natalia: Carlos, write about it in the forum. Focus, focus, focus! |
| Carlos: How can I focus when I find a tick on my leg and it’s from the horses? |
| Natalia: Carlos, well at least you don’t call me crying. That’s ok… |
| Carlos: I did call her crying, I was like… |
| Natalia: It’s freaking out. |
| Carlos: And she said, “That’s what you get for playing cowboy in Palmares”. |
| Natalia: Ok, ok, ok, ok. Carlos? |
| Carlos: Yes. |
| Natalia: Back to the lesson. |
| Carlos: Sorry. |
| Natalia: Give me another sentence while you’re thinking of your tick. |
| Carlos: “Me siento a la mesa”, “I sit at the table.” See? Another destination, which would be the table. |
| Natalia: Yes, good. But another use. It can be used to connect the verb with the following infinitive. |
| Carlos: Well, now you’re getting technical. |
| Natalia: Not as technical as you think. |
| Carlos: Ok… |
| Natalia: So here’s an example. “He venido a enseñar”, “I’ve come to teach, grasshopper.” |
| Carlos: Where’s “grasshopper” in that sentence? |
| Natalia: It’s not, I just put it in there, but you see what I mean about linking the verb with the following infinitive? |
| Carlos: Yeah, like you like the verb “venir”, “to come”, with the infinitive “enseñar”, “to teach”. |
| Natalia: Ok, now that I did, you try it out. |
| Carlos: Ok, let me think. |
| Natalia: Ok. Du du du du. |
| Carlos: Ok, let me think. I know. “Voy a cantar”, “I'm going to sing.” |
| Natalia: Ok, thanks for the example, leave the singing for another lesson or just leave it altogether, Carlos. |
| Carlos: I have a good voice [inaudible 00:10:05]. |
| Natalia: Ok. “A” can be used to indicate a manner or method followed by a noun to indicate how something is done. |
| Carlos: Ok. |
| Natalia: A phrase starting with “a” functions as an adverb and [inaudible 00:10:17] can sometimes be translated as one. |
| Carlos: I’ll keep that in mind. |
| Natalia: Like “llegamos a tiempo”, “we arrived on time” or… |
| Carlos: “Llegamos a pie”, “we are going on foot”. |
| Natalia: Exactly. I say we move on. “A” can also be used to introduce a direct object. |
| Carlos: A direct object, got it. |
| Natalia: No you don’t, Carlos, cause I wasn’t done. “A” can introduce a direct object that is a person or is treated as a person. |
| Carlos: Wait, I’ve heard this before. |
| Natalia: Yeah, it’s a called a personal “a”. |
| Carlos: Ok, like “conozco a Paco”, “I know Paco”. |
| Natalia: Or “hablaré a Dylan”, “I will speak to Dylan”. One thing to remember is that in this usage the preposition is usually not translated. |
| Carlos: I see what you mean. |
| Natalia: We have two more uses of the preposition “a”. |
| Carlos: I'm still here. What about you, audience? |
| Natalia: “A”, well, “a” can also be used to introduce an indirect object. |
| Carlos: Well, that is the use from our conversation today when Carina says “si gusta le dejo el mensaje a la doctora que lo llame apenas venga mañana”. “If you’d like I will leave a message for the doctor to call you as soon as she gets in tomorrow.” |
| Natalia: Carlos worked really hard on Spanish, but because you can't even be a receptionist. |
| Carlos: You’re fired. |
| Natalia: Alright, stop playing boss cause I get mine, listen, or “le pongo la camisa a Michael”, “I'm putting the shirt on Michael”. |
| Carlos: And what’s our last usage? |
| Natalia: The preposition “a” can be used to express various expressions of time. Por ejemplo, “salimos a las 10”. “We’re out at 10”. |
| Carlos: For one letter, the preposition “a” does have a lot of uses. |
| Natalia: I told you but it sounds like a lot more than it is. Give it some time and practice, it will come in naturally. |
| Carlos: Not alone with a trip to the grammar back. |
| Natalia: As always, Carlos. |
Outro |
| Carlos: Well, you know what, Pod101 world? That just about does it for today. Ok, nos vemos. |
| Natalia: Chao! |
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