How to use the construction Al llegar + a place

Question

To al llegar + country, do you use the definitive article? E.g. Al llegar a la España OR Al llegar a España

Welcome to SpanishDict. Please take a moment and complete your SD profile as it relates to language. Thanks. - rac1, May 1, 2016

Unfortunately njayan291 has not updatedhis or her language profile. I answered mainly because I wanted to help gringojrf, but it is still incomplete to help answer the OP :/ - chileno, May 2, 2016

I'm glad you did, amigo. :) - rac1, May 2, 2016

Answer 1

As always the article is used to single out the house or some house....

al llegar a la casa

al llegar a una casa

al llegar a casa - this one is always the destination, whether it is yours or that of a friend.

Answer 2

Personally I would use the article if I normally do with the country (some countries are usually associated with the article, some not), or if I am qualifying the country. I would not otherwise.

Al llegar a España

Al llegar a la India

Google: 300k for "al llegar a España", 17 (no k) for "al llegar a la España" and have things like "la España de Franco". 300k for "al llegar a la India" and 18k for "al llegar a India".

Just my opinion, I am not a native speaker.

I agree. - annierats, May 1, 2016

Interesting. Why the the article for India? - Winkfish, May 1, 2016

It is just usually used with the article. :) - bosquederoble, May 1, 2016

http://spanish.about.com/od/adjectives/a/countriees.htm - jtaniel, May 1, 2016

above link is interesting - Mardle, May 1, 2016

Thank you Jtaniel. Since India is in bold, I see that I chose well. :) - bosquederoble, May 2, 2016

Answer 3

Good question. One that I think can go either way depending on context. I typed

Al llegar... into the translator and I got construction that include the article and others that did not. Notably these two.

Al llegar a casa

and

Al llegar a la casa

So I think we need a native to weigh in here.

Answer 4

Most seem to be without the article.

However, the American Embassy in Peru uses without the article in the side bar and with in the text!

USA

However, I see that you now have the benefit of chileno.

Answer 5

A la India o a India

Roble do you work in the R.A.E? .