Is this grammatically correct

Question

"Mi gusta a almorzar en muchos restaurantes. Prefiero ir al cine para ver películas con mis hijos también. Voy a ir al parque para pasear. Digo mis hijos a pensar en la diversión a hacer el fin de semana. Ellos quieren ir de excursión. Pido a escalar montañas. Nosotros salimos hoy. Volvemos pronto."

I know subject pronouns aren't normally used because the conjugated verb takes care of that, but it is a requirement as part of this particular paragraph to write out at least two subject pronouns. I just want to make sure, grammatically speaking, this paragraph is correct. Thanks so much.

Answer 1

"Me gusta a almorzar en muchos restaurantes. Prefiero ir al cine para ver películas con mis hijos también. Voy a ir al parque para pasear.

It is not wrong the way you wrote it (except that "mi"), but "...al parque a pasear" is more commonly used.

Digo mis hijos a pensar en la diversión a hacer el fin de semana.

This sentence is a problem, though. Unless you speak English and you translate it literally back into English, you will struggle to even understand what it means (unless you are good at decrypting encoded messages). I assume you meant to say "I tell my children to think about something fun to do this this weekend", or something like that. Now, unfortunately, most "to" in English have no translation into Spanish (especially those two in my attempt at inverse engineering your sentence into English: "to think / to do"). As a general rule, if you would use a "to" in English that does not indicate direction, do not translate it as "a". Instead, ask someone how to express the equivalent in Spanish, because it is likely to be very different.

Ellos quieren ir de excursión.

That's fine.

Pido a escalar montañas.

Another sentence that makes no sense. I assume there was another "to" in the original English sentence.

Nosotros salimos hoy. Volvemos pronto.

That "nosotros" is totally unacceptable after having said it two sentences earlier, while you keep talking about "us" all the time. "Volvemos" is correct, although this sounds more like the typical approximation that you would say in future tense: "volveremos".

So, would it be acceptable to take the "a" out of the sentence and let it stand on its own since it has no direction? Also, I would use "volveremos", but we aren't allowed to use future tense; it has to be present or present progressive. - brackinsfam, Jun 22, 2011

Answer 2

So, would it be acceptable to take the "a" out of the sentence and let it stand on its own since it has no direction?

No, what I meant was that the typical "a" that appears before an infinitive can rarely be translated as "a", but that doesn't mean that you just omit this word: chances are you will have to use a completely different structure in Spanish; maybe the subjunctive.

I have to see that = Tengo que ver eso [to = que]

I told you to clean it = Te dije que lo limpiaras [que + subjunctive]

I want to sleep = Quiero dormir [nothing in Spanish]

Also, I would use "volveremos", but we aren't allowed to use future tense; it has to be present or present progressive.

Present progressive here can't be used.