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Usage of "de" and "del" in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| tuffy Triglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 7036 days ago 1394 posts - 1412 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, German Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 13 11 November 2005 at 2:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thus far I have learned that "de" means "from" (él es de Hollanda for instance).
Now I hear this sentence: "Antes de comer" (before eating) Why isn't simply "Antes comer"? What does the "de" add and mean in this sentence? Does it mean "before the eating, the process of eating"? To clarify that it's not eating in general but a specific meal? I'd like to understand the exact meaning of "de" in these sentences so I can learn it better. And then there is also: "antes beben del café" Why do they use "de el > del"? Why not also "antes de café". Or does this always apply to an object? And comer is an action not an object so there you only use "de"? So in short: what does "de" mean in these sentences and why do you sometimes add le (del) or la (de la) to it? (p.s. try to explain without many grammar terms :-) Gracias!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 13 11 November 2005 at 4:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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Programmatic Spanish uses the words "meaningless but
mandatory words" for cases where a word like "de" cannot be translated into English. They say all native speakers use it and it sounds wrong not to use it. They may use an example like, "Give him the book" vs "Give the book to him". Although both sentences mean the same thing in English, if you add or remove the word "to" in either sentence, it will not sound natural to a native speaker. I occasionally have similar questions. My general approach is to just say it the way they suggest and practice a lot. With enough experience, the correct phrasing should become natural. I'm sure someone else can give you a better explanation in this particular case. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 13 11 November 2005 at 6:14am | IP Logged | |||||
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The word "de" has many meanings, including "from". I don't know why it's used in the sentence you said ("antes de comer") except that it sounds right. It might have something to do with verb tenses, for example, "antes comemos" (first we'll eat) sounds OK but "antes de comemos" is complete nonsense.
You also mentioned "le" and "la". These are definite articles (like "the" in English) for masculine and female nouns. For example, "antes del café..." means "before the coffee..." Hope this is useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Al-Malik Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member United Kingdom arabicgenie.com Joined 7136 days ago 221 posts - 294 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German*, Spanish, Arabic (Written), Dutch, French, Arabic (classical) Studies: Mandarin, Persian | Message 4 of 13 11 November 2005 at 8:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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"Programmatic Spanish uses the words "meaningless but
mandatory words" for cases where a word like "de" cannot be translated into English." I think this approach of ignoring the meaning of the words is mistaken. Instead it should be made clear why certain words are used and what their meaning is. In the case of "antes de comer" this would best be done by providing a word for word literal translation: antes de comer before from (to)eat -> before eating antes comemos before eat-we -> first, we eat (then we do other stuff) this last sentence implicitly assumes that the action of eating will be done before another action takes place: antes (de hacer algo) comemos before (from (to)make something) eat-we -> before doing something we eat I am not sure about the general grammatical rule, but I think that if antes is followed by an infinitive, then there has to be a "de" in between. However, there seem to be exceptions to this as in: antes morir que disculparme before (to)die that/than (to)excuse-me -> I'd rather die than excuse me Hope this helps a bit? Ultimately, every language will have constructions that look weird at first, but you will get used to them if you take a close look at the structure. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Brent Groupie United States Joined 7016 days ago 55 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 13 11 November 2005 at 9:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have just started Assimil's Spanish With Ease, but I can tell you what they say about your question regarding "antes beben del café."
In the lesson 7 Revisión y notas, they simply say "The definite article is very often needed where English would leave it out." I have noticed this in some of the Pimsleur lessons also. They will say something along the lines of "Me gusta la cerveza" where in English, we would just say "I like beer." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7017 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 13 11 November 2005 at 9:55am | IP Logged | |||||
Better to say "I'd rather die than apologize", but I think that it sounds better as "prefiero morir que disculparme", although this is not using "antes"! Tuffy, I think that your confusion arises from the fact that you're trying to literally translate the Spanish into English (or Dutch?). The construction of Spanish is different to that of English since they belong to different families, so a direct translation is not always possible. Something I forgot to mention earlier...
The use of "del" is not needed in the above phrase since it means "from the", i.e. "first, they drink from the coffee (pot)", implying that they are all drinking from the same place. This is OK for something like "Ellos beben del río" (They drink from the river) but I wouldn't use it for coffee! So, "antes beben café" is OK, whereas "antes beber café" is not, meaning that the verb has to be conjugated (but I don't know for sure). Edited by patuco on 11 November 2005 at 10:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7105 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 13 11 November 2005 at 10:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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Despite Tuffy's request not to use grammatical explanations, it's going to be difficult here not to... :¬)
antes in most of the examples above is an adverb of time with a similar meaning to the English "before, earlier, in the past" depending on context. Adding "de" makes it a prepositional phrase (in this case a prepositional locution or complex preposition) which is followed by a noun phrase (the "comer" is a nominalised infinitive). This is same as other adverbs in prepositional phrases such as: debajo de, después de, detrás de etc. In the other example above.... antes morir que disculparme antes is functioning here as a conjunction rather than an adverb in a prepositional phrase and to keep a similar infinitive phrase as English could be translated as the following: better to die than apologise. Andy. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tuffy Triglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 7036 days ago 1394 posts - 1412 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 13 11 November 2005 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks everyone, I have some idea now how it works.
But I have saved it for re-reading it, especially the lovely grammar Andy :-) (I have a folder where I save all the questions and answers.) But indeed also the tips for not translating literal all the time is a good one. Maybe sometimes I just have to accept things until they become second nature. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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