Strange "A" Appearing Before Subject Pronouns

Question

Why does a random "a" appear at the beginning of some sentences? It isn't the personal a, as far as I can tell, because it doesn't come before a direct object.

Ex: A él le gusta este concierto.

If you would like to participate more in this forum, please fill out your profile. - Jubilado, Jan 6, 2015

Please fill out your profile so that we may better help you . Bienvenido al fora , buena suerte amigo. - ray76, Jan 7, 2015

Answer 1

Just for clarification, the 'a' is not appearing before a subject pronoun.

Let's look at your sentence........

A (preposition) él (indirect object - him) le (indirect object pronoun him/her/it) gusta (conjugated verb present tense - to be pleasing) este concierto (subject - this concert).

The 'a él' is not needed, it is added for emphasis. Say for example there are two people ( a boy and a girl) at the concert and you wanted to point out that he is enjoying it.

A literal translation in English would be .... this concert is pleasing to him. But of course, we would simply say......He likes this concert.

Excellent answer. - Jubilado, Jan 7, 2015

thanks mate - billygoat, Jan 7, 2015

Answer 2

This is neither strange nor random. In your example it emphasizes that he likes this concert.

For emphasis you can always add the "a + pronoun" in a sentence. See bosquederoble's clarification in the comments.

a mí (note written accent) = me or I

a ti, a usted = you

a él, ella = he / she or him / her

Look up pronouns that come after a preposition for further examples.

Point of clarification, you can add "a + pronoun" when the person is an indirect object, but I do not believe that you can do so when the person being referred to is the subject. - bosquederoble, Jan 6, 2015

Point of clarification given the title, these are not subject pronouns, these are object of preposition pronouns. - bosquederoble, Jan 6, 2015

So you can use "a + object of preposition pronoun" to emphasize a direct object pronoun. - bosquederoble, Jan 6, 2015

Thank you for the clarification. You are correct regarding the subject pronoun. I think it can be used also for a person who is the direct object as well. - Jubilado, Jan 6, 2015