Question about the use of prepositions

Question

I've noticed that sometimes in Spanish prepositions aren't used when they would be required in English. When can you exclude the preposition?

For example: almas en barco golpeaban, in English I'm almost sure you'd have to say spirits in the boat fought.

It appears that your question concerns definite articles, not prepositions. - AnnRon, Jul 28, 2016

Answer 1

Prepositions are the "bugaboo" for all language learners. You just have to learn the use of them one by one as they occur in your studies then memorize them.

If you will go to the the SD home page, and scroll down to the bottom, you will see a "grammar" button. Click on it then scroll down to "prepositions." You will then see five or six links to great reference articles on the various kinds of prepositions.

Buena suerte.

Daniela, doesn't he mean to ask about definite articles rather than prepositions? - AnnRon, Jul 28, 2016

You are probably right. In that case the OP can scroll down to "articles" :) - Daniela2041, Jul 28, 2016

Beside that, the Spanish phrase used, is not normal usage. It may be from a poem. To translate the English I would say "Los espíritus en el barco se pelean. " - Daniela2041, Jul 28, 2016

Whoops! Preterite or Imperfect "pelearon/peleaban." - Daniela2041, Jul 28, 2016

I would say articles are almost as much of a "bugaboo" as prepositions, but only almost. :) - bosquederoble, Jul 28, 2016

In Russian they are no problem. They are not used. When speaking English they will say, "yesterday I go to store." A Russian girl in my class last semester verified my observations on this. - Daniela2041, Jul 28, 2016

Dani, "go" must be conjugated in your Russian example, in fact even prepositions are conjugated - it´s a nightmare of conjugation even though it has no articles: "вчера я пошëл в магазин" - 005faa61, Jul 28, 2016

I think that prepositions are more tricky than articles since you can and should learn the appropriate article wnen learnng the noun, whereas prepositions have to be learnt on an individual basis as Dani rightly says and there are so many different - FELIZ77, Jul 28, 2016

variations and possibilities - FELIZ77, Jul 28, 2016

You can also get to the "Grammar" section by clicking on the, "Menu" button in the upper left hand corner. - rac1, Jul 28, 2016

@Julian: I know that Russian has a past tense. But that doesn't mean that they use the English past tense;correctly. - Daniela2041, Jul 29, 2016