Having fear / Being scared

Question

I learned today in the "English word of the day" that it should be:

(tener) miedo "a" and not (tener) miedo "de" when you are afraid of something.

Then, coincidentally, I learned the same thing while using one of my resources today.

In English, we would say that we are scared of something, or fearful of something, so of course we would want to use "de".

Does it translate differently in Spanish? I'm not going to forget that it is "a" now... but I was just curious.

Answer 1

I thought it was like this:

Tener miedo a una cosa.

Tener miedo de hacer algo.

Por ejemplo:

Tengo miedo a las serpientes.

Tengo miedo de decir algo incorrecto.

¿Verdad?

excelente:) - 00494d19, Nov 19, 2011

Very interesting. That does fit what I have learned so far. Hopefully somebody else will verify this. Thanks! - Tosh, Nov 19, 2011

Gracias, Heidi... that helps a lot!! - Tosh, Nov 19, 2011

Answer 2

It's not always incorrect to use miedo de. From our dictionary:

tengo miedo de que se estropee -> I'm frightened it'll get damaged

googling:

Hey Q, now type in "why does my dad" and see what's it says, makes me laugh everytime. - jeezzle, Nov 19, 2011

Good point. - 0074b507, Nov 19, 2011

jezzle--I took your suggestion and holy smokes! Reveals something terrible about a lot of Dads, huh? - ElBúho, Nov 20, 2011