What's the difference between "de" la tarde and "por" las tardes?

Question

I saw two example sentences from 2.9. 1. Mis padres siempre almorzaban a la una de la tarde. 2. Mi hermana saltaba a la cuerda por las tardes. Why one is "de" la tarde and the other is "por" las tardes? What's the difference of meaning between them?

Answer 1

Hi Joy.

Good answer, by Lliones, of course.

I´ll elaborate and say, when you see ¨por las tardes¨ you should note that that is plural, and is talking about a habitual or repeated action that happens at a general time of day, is this case, during the afternoons.

Por lo general, bebo café por las mañanas. Generally, I drink coffee in the mornings.

But if you want to be exact, about a single time, you say.

Voy a beber (o tomar) café a las 7. OR Siempre bebo café a las 7.

Now, a third possibility is you want to talk about an exact time within a general time period, we were taught we need to use ¨de¨ instead of ´por´ for that case.

Prefiero tomar café a las 7 de la tarde.

I can´t guarantee that is right, so maybe Lliones can comment further, or correct or improve this answer. Book and class Spanish is not always the same as commonly spoken Spanish.

Hope that helps Joy.

Roger

Hora, Roger! Muchas gracias! - joygogo, Feb 20, 2013

Creo que tienes razón, Roger. - Jubilado, Feb 20, 2013

Answer 2

"a la " you refer one hour exactly.

a la 1, a las 2 a las 3 ... a las 11

"por las" it refer part of the day.

por la mañana, por las tardes por las noches.

Answer 3

A couple of things I found. When another time phrase appears before mañana,tarde or noche the preposition "de" is used not "por ".

A las once de la mañana. At eleven o'clock in the morning. Ella me despertó en mitad de la noche. She woke me up in the middle of the night.

Noun ( meeting, clase etc.) + de + time word

La clase de mañana ha sido aplazada. Tomorrows class has been postponed.

El periódico de hoy no dice nada. Today's paper doesn't say anything.