substituting "de" instead of full possessive pronouns

Question

I am sorry if my question has already been answered in the forums but I could not find it...

I'm trying to translate the following: Sara's husband and Susana's are very good friends. I wrote: El esposo de Sara y el esposo de Susana son muy buenos amigos.

However I was told that the following was also correct: "El de Sara y el de Susana son muy buenos amigos."

Can someone please tell me the rules for when "de" can be used instead of a noun or possessive pronoun? THANKS

Answer 1

"El esposo de Sara y de Susana..." isn't correct, unless you were talking about the same man (married to both women). "El de Sara y el de Susana..." can only be correct if you were speaking about a husband in the previous sentence: "Mi esposo es buen amigo de Juan. El de Sara y el de Susana...". If you only say "El de Sara y el de Susana...", how could I know what are you talking about? I would say: "El esposo de Sara y el de Susana". In this case, you can skip the second "esposo" because there isn't possibility of misunderstanding.

Answer 2

Hi, I would say "El esposo de Sara y el esposo de Susana son muy buen amigos."

Answer 3

Say... " El esposo de sara y de susana son muy buenos amigos"... El esposo introduces the subject "El" as being a spouse... if the subject is not understood then for all the reader knows you could be talking of cats ( el gato). so dont say "el de sara y de susana" unless the subject is understood, and even then it still seems off to me, i guess because grammar is important. "de" can only be used as a noun when the subject has already been stated... its right to say "sara's husband and susana's are friends" but wrong to say " sara's and susana's are friends" because in the second example no subject was implied, the same applies to the use of "de".