Verbs + infinitive + a/de
I was looking through some old notes, and combining them into new notes....and I came across these phrases which made me say "oh yeah....."....
Estoy empezando a limpiar - I'm starting to clean. Estoy empezando a cenar - I'm starting to eat dinner.
and so I thought "I wonder why that a is in there....maybe you need an a after the present progressive tense when the sentence ends in a verb."
Since limpiar and cenar mean "to clean" and "to eat dinner" respectively then I wonder why the a is needed. Surely it has something to do with the present progressive tense ending in a verb? Or is that not it.
Estoy terminando de cenar - I'm finishing eating dinner. Ya terminé de limpiar - I already finishing cleaning.
I'm assuming that the de is needed to indicating terminating a procedure as in "I'm finishing from eating" or "I already finished from cleaning"...(I knew this once but it all gets jumbled)....
Paz.
2 Answers
It has nothing to do with the present progressive tense. Certain verbs in Spanish are used in conjunction with prepositions regardless of tense. See article below:
comenzar empezar a and terminar de are listed among those.
Well that's bad news qfreed. Now I have to memorize all those verbs. Thanks though.
