Identifying and Using Common Spanish Prepositions 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 nio empieza a rer. (The child begins to laugh.) Verb to noun: Ella estudia con sus amigas. (She studies with her friends.) Verb to pronoun: Qu 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 est en Puerto Rico. (My family is in Puerto Rico.) Voy a Espaa. (Im going to Spain.)

And now, here are the prepositions and prepositional phrases youll encounter most in Spanish. Common Spanish Prepositions

Preposition A a eso de (+ time) a fuerza de a pesar de a tiempo a travs (de)

Meaning to, at at about (time)

Preposition detrs de durante

Meaning behind during

by persevering in spite of on time across, through About Besides Around

en en cambio en casa de en lugar de

in, on, by on the other hand at the house of instead of

acerca de adems de alrededor de

en vez de encima de enfrente de entre frente a fuera de hacia

instead of above, on top of opposite, in front of

antes (de) cerca de con contra

before near with against

between in front of outside of toward

de de otro modo debajo de

of, from, about hasta otherwise beneath, under in front of inside, within since after lejos de por

until far for, by

delante de dentro de desde despus (de)

para segn sin sobre

for according to without over, above, on, upon