When do I use 'a la' when speaking about where I'm going versus 'a' or 'la'

Question

I am a sophomore and I am taking Spanish one online over a school Spanish course. I am very confused as to when I should use 'a la', la', or just 'a'. This is not explained much in detail in my course. Help?

Answer 1

I am not sure how familiar you are with grammatical terminology, but the two words that you have listed are distinct parts of speech. More importantly, if you have a basic understanding of the ways each of these parts of speech function in English, then you should at least begin to have some idea as to the differences between the two (which is not to suggest that each is used identically to its respective English counterpart).

Here is a summary of the two with links provided for further investigation

Term	Part of Speech	Use
a	Preposition	Used to indicate a direction or destination
la	Definite Article	Principally, used to delimit the noun to which it refers

*Note: the preposition "a" has various uses, but in the context which you described, this would be the appropriate idea conveyed.

In addition to the links provided, here are a couple of examples which might help you compare the ideas conveyed by each of these parts of speech in English and Spanish.

?I am going to the beach. ? Voy a la playa.

?I am going to Mexico. ? Voy a México.

Izan, you need one more thing which I always get confused about and that is the ¨personal a¨¨. - foxluv, Feb 4, 2011

Hi foxluv: I limited my discussion to reflect the scope of the original question. Certainly, the preposition "a" has several distinct uses in Spanish (as can be seen by searching any decent dictionary). - Izanoni1, Feb 4, 2011

Answer 2

Gracias Amigo.