Prepositions

Prepositions in Spanish,, like those in other languages, are 1 or more connecting words (such as con, de or para) that serve to indicate a relationship between a content word (noun, verb, or adjective) and a following noun phrase (or noun, or pronoun). This relationship is often spatial or temporal (where or when the action takes place), but they can express other relationships as well. As implied by the name, Spanish "prepositions" (like those of English) are positioned before their objects.

Spanish prepositions can be classified as either "simple", consisting of a single word, or "compound", consisting of two or three words. The prepositions of Spanish form a closed class and so they are a limited set to which new items are rarely added.

Many Spanish school pupils memorize the following list: a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, and tras.

Compound prepositions

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一些复合介词重复了简单介词的意思，但通常带有更正式的语气。例如，de acuerdo con（“根据”）等效于según（基于）。 En dirección a（“朝着”）比hacia（向着）更正式。西班牙语en的英文对应词可以是“on”或“in”，而dentro de则特指“in”。“因为”只是por的几种可能含义之一，但por causa de仅表示因为。某些情况下，复合介词表示字面上的空间关系，而相应的简单介词表示该关系的比喻版本：因此，debajo deuna mesa（“在桌子下”）与bajoun régimen之间（“在政权下”），或delante deun edificio（“在建筑物前”）与anteun tribunal（“在法律面前”）。

The list of compound prepositions is much longer than that of the simple ones, and only some representative examples are listed here.

Spanish compound prepositions can be composed of:

• a preposition + noun + preposition:

  • por causa de / a causa de / en razón de = "because of"

  • sin perjuicio de = "notwithstanding", "without prejudice to"

  • con respecto a = "with respect to", "regarding"

  • a favor de = "in favour of"

  • en contra de = "against . . ." (e.g. en mi contra, en tu contra, en su contra, etc.)

  • en lugar de / en vez de = "instead of", "in lieu of"

  • etc.

• or of an adverb + preposition:

  • después de = "after"

  • debajo de = "beneath", "underneath"

  • antes de = "before" (i.e. "prior to")

  • junto a = "beside", "alongside"

  • delante de = "in front of" and "[positioned] before"

  • Etc.

All info on this page courtesy of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_prepositions