Repeating the Preposition "A"

Question

Should the preposition "a" be repeated in phrases such as "A María y a Lupe les gusta bailar" ? Or is it OK to say "A María y Lupe les gusta bailar"? How about with the verb "Ir"? Is it correct to say "Voy a la tienda y al correo" or "Voy a la tienda y el correo"?

Excellent question. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 21, 2016

Welcome to SpanishDict. - rac1, Dec 21, 2016

Answer 1

I would repeat the "a" in these sentences. I am a learner, await other input:

https://books.google.com/books?id=TOKUP9qbMdgC&pg=PA236&lpg=PA236&dq=prepositions+in+spanish+repeated&source=bl&ots=YlSNxHRrvf&sig=RrYV3EIopt_ofwhVNi45pXFwp8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvh_zfk4TRAhUH3GMKHZY9By04ChDoAQgfMAE#v=onepage&q=prepositions in spanish repeated&f=false

Although I am linking an ancient book, so ancient the a carries an accent, I believe it to be correct in this.

For "a" I believe it is standard to repeat.

For others, such as en, sin and con, they are repeated if the two items do not form part of a mental whole- the books and magazines on my shelf might be a mental whole. A dog and a banana less likely so. Although maybe in some situation you could envision them as such.

Here is a thread that takes the same attitude as the second part at least: This regards en.

http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=19525

This is another thread that may be of interest. It is about contra.

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/en-junio-y-en-agosto-repetition.930526/

You did it again. Enhorabuena. - Daniela2041, Dec 21, 2016

I sometimes have a hard time getting my students to remember that--even some of the bilinguals. - Daniela2041, Dec 21, 2016

Gracias, Daniela. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 21, 2016

Answer 2

Being Spanish my mother tongue, I would always repeat the proposition "a" because it sounds more natural to me, so I would recommend that you always repeat it. And in your second sentence I would also repeat the preposition, but you have made a mistake with "y al correo", we don't say "Al correo" we say "a la oficina de correos" or if you are in Spain you can also say "a Correos" being Correos the name of the bussiness which delivers the mail here in Spain.

I hope you don't mind. I made a correction to spelling. - rac1, Dec 21, 2016

Don't worry, I don't mind being corrected when I have made mistake, this way at least I won't do it again. - juaner, Dec 21, 2016

I wish I had that skill, usually I have to be corrected a couple of times before I quit making a mistake. Sometimes even more, like remembering to change y to e before something with i. :) - bosquederoble, Dec 21, 2016

"al correo" is probably not correct grammar, however, in Mexico it is a very common idiomatic phrase - 005faa61, Dec 21, 2016

Exactly. Gracias, Julian. - Daniela2041, Dec 21, 2016

Thank you Juaner and Julian. :) - rac1, Dec 21, 2016

¡Muchísimas gracias por su ayuda! Repeating the "a" sounded right to me, but I couldn't find anything to back it up, so I started to doubt myself. - mabenson, Dec 22, 2016