"del" and "de"
I'm using Rosetta Stone. It included the following sentence: El hombre está debajo del carro. Why is "del" necessary? I have seen someone spell it "de" as well. When would you use "del" instead of "de" and vice-versa?
4 Answers
The word "del" is a contraction of "de"(of) and "el"(the).
El hombre está debajo de el carro --> El hombre está debajo del carro.
Del is a contraction of de and el and as carro is a masculine noun it is del if it had been a feminine noun like mesa it would be "debajo de la mesa"
Same as in English. I assume that you are looking at a picture of the car. The is used to mean the specific car (the one that you are looking at). If it were simply de then it would be The man is beneath/under/underneath car.
Del is just a compound of "De & El"
You don't see "dela" because it doesn't exist.
"De" means of and "El" means the (masculine)
"Del" just means "of the" in a masculine place
"De la" means the same but is used in a feminine place
It shouldn't be that hard of a concept to grasp.
