El olor a enchiladas.... Why 'a' for 'of'?

Question

El olor a enchiladas.... Why a for 'of'?

Just doing an exercise and wondering why the 'a' for 'of'.

I guess I would have put 'de' but this is an ongoing confusion I have. Any good explanations for me?

Answer 1

That's just the way it is in Spanish. Oler a = smells like/of. I don't think there is a real explanation, you kind of just have to accept it and memorize it. This is similar with other verbs, for example saber a = tastes like.

Knowing oler needs 'a' after it is enough explanation for me. Thanks Kramer. I think it's the English translation that gets me, "the smell of enchiladas".... - katydew, Jul 15, 2012

Yea no problem. And watch out for those prepositions, they are often different in Spanish than in English for no particular reason. But you will pick up on this as you expose yourself to the language more - kramer12, Jul 15, 2012

Answer 2

Hmmm I agree with Kramer that the preposition 'a' is used to say that something smells or tastes of ...... when used with the verbs saber and oler but for your example i would have expected so see 'de' too as you are referring to 'el olor' as a noun.

Edit - ok after a bit of investigation it seems that for the nouns 'el olor' and 'el sabor' you can use either 'a' or 'de' but there is a slightly difference nuance between the two - eg: el olor a ajo (the garlic smell that could be on something) vs el olor del ajo (the smell of (the) garlic (itself).

I have made a wee lesson on what I've learnt so far I hope something in it is useful for you too

To smell of / To taste of

Solo una cosita más. Normalmente, si usamos "de", suele ir seguido de un determinante "El olor del ajo", "El olor de las enchiladas", "El olor de un ajo", "El olor de este ajo"... - Cordobesa, Jul 15, 2012

ah interesante, gracias - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 15, 2012

Great! Learned something new today!!! Thanks Kiwi and Cordobesa! - --Mariana--, Jul 15, 2012

Thanks Kiwi! I love 'wee lessons". You're a star. - katydew, Jul 15, 2012

Cordobesa, thank you. Very helpful addition. - katydew, Jul 15, 2012

Answer 3

in general terms:

Oler a........ when something smell like.

This parfum smells like flowers. Éste perfume huele a flores

Olor de...... The smell of ....

I like the flower's smell. Me gusta el olor de las flores

Jbriden:

El olor a pino siempre me recuerda a la Navidad. The smell of pine always reminds me of Christmas. The smell comes from an undeterminated place. It can be a pine a parfum, you don't know where it comes from. you are referring only to the smell

Answer 4

From Kiwi and Cordobesa we get the following, correct?

El olor de un ajo (the garlic smell that could be on something) vs. el olor del ajo (the smell of (the) garlic (itself).

Learn something new every day!!!

Did you mean to just put "de" un ajo on your first example. If you did, I'm confused. - katydew, Jul 15, 2012

hmmm I'd say - el olor a ajo = the garlic smell but el olor del ajo = the smell of (the) garlic (itself) - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 15, 2012

Answer 5

The whole sentence is as follows:

"El olor a enchiladas cirucula por toda la casa."

This is just in case it makes the subtle differences more clear.

perfect, so 'the enchilada smell is all through the house' - vs El olor de las enchiladas .... The smell of the enchiladas .... subtle but different :) - Kiwi-Girl, Jul 15, 2012

Answer 6

Thank you for the explanation. I feel like I now have a good understanding of when to use "olor a" vs "olor de", and how it would also apply to saber.

But now I have a different though similar problem. I was ended up here after being confused by an example in the "word of the day"...

El olor a pino siempre me recuerda a la Navidad.

The smell of pine always reminds me of Christmas.

I now get the first case where "a" translates to "of", but notice that it happens again in the second half of the sentence as well - "me recuerda A" = "reminds me OF".

Can anyone explain that? It seems quite different, because in this case what follows is a definite article (la), so I'm guessing it's quite a different rule.