Personal 'a' vs 'a' as the word 'to'

Question

I've been practicing Spanish a bit with duolingo.com, and this sentence recently came up to translate to english:

Es hora de presentar a tu padre.

The correct answer was: It's time to present your father.
I understand that this is correct, but it seems possible that It's time to present to your father would also be correct.

Am I misunderstanding something that makes it clear that this is the use of a personal a and isn't just something where you'd need to know the context?

Buena pregunta. - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

Don't forget that sometimes the "a" is untranslatable into English but is used when a person is a direct object of a verb. - Jubilado, Dec 8, 2012

There is no translation to the personal A in English - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

Answer 1

Es hora de presentar a tu padre means It's time to introduce your father.

Conversely,

Es hora de presentarle a tu padre could mean two things:

It's time to make a presentation to your father.

OR

It's time to introduce him/her to your father.

I hope this helps/

Gracias mi paisano. Es una oración ...extraña... para mí. pues ...eso dicho, pescador dio la repuesta perfecta. - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

Thanks, I especially appreciate the second example. - wbyoung, Dec 9, 2012

Answer 2

In the first place, I think a translation of your Spanish phrase that would sound a little more natural in English would be: "It's time to introduce your father". In this context the "a" is personal. The reason why you know that this sentence does not translate as "it's time to present/introduce someone or something to your father", is because the sentence lacks an indirect object pronoun (in this case "le"), which would be necessary.

Para mí, esa construcción entera me parece no natural, pero no sé. No la habría traducido, lol. - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

Buena respuesta, te doy un like. - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

Thanks, that was very helpful! - wbyoung, Dec 9, 2012

Answer 3

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Es hora de presentar a tu padre.

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I'll be the first to put myself on the chopping block as unknowledgeable, but that doesn't make full sense to me.

That's not the personal 'a' ....it's the natural preposition that comes with 'presentar' [que yo sepa]. - wrong

Es hora de presentarle a tu padre. (It's time to present him/her to your father.)

Other than that, I have no idea.

Follow up: Pescador is correct. You know it doesn't mean "to your father" because that would make your father the indirect object... and when you have an indirect object, you need an indirect object pronoun. It's the personal A

presentarl@ a (present it to) - presentarle a (present him/her to) - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012

@ = a/o - a-YU-dar, Dec 8, 2012