Another use of "de"?

Question

The phrase "trato de aprender...." or "estoy tratendo de aprender..." is translated as " I am trying to learn..." . Yet every discussion of "de" does not suggest any use that would translate adequately for the above examples where the obvious translation is "to". Any help here?

Welcome to the forum! - pesta, Feb 26, 2011

Answer 1

It's not so much a question of "de" but of some verb + "de". After some verbs a preposition is required (or when used changes the meaning of the verb). This also happens frequently in English. e.g. "to cut" / "to cut down"

Answer 2

Translation is not a word-for-word exercise in every case. This is one of those times that the Spanish have an expression that uses "de". It doesn't really mean "to", only the full meaning in English needs "to".

For another example, tratar has:

tratar de hacer algo -> to try to do something

And an even odder one:

¿de qué se trata? -> what's it about?

thanks for responding "pesta"! I keep hearing about learning context insterad of "word by word": This is probably a good example of that... - t8805jg, Feb 26, 2011