Spanish Contractions
English has quite a lot of contractions (short forms of a word or group of words made by leaving out a sound or letter), such as can’t, we’ll, you’d, they’re, and you’ve. Spanish, however, has only two!
Meet Al and Del
When the prepositions a(to) or de(of or from) come before the definite article el, they combine with it to form a contraction.
More on Al
Normally, whenever a and el are together, you must contract them to al. However, if el is a capitalized part of a name, it does not contract to al when used with a.
For example:
More on Del
Normally, whenever de and el are together, you must shorten them to del. However, if el is a capitalized part of a name, it does not contract to del when used with de. Sound familiar? It should. It's the same rule you just learned for al!
Check out these examples of correct and incorrect sentences.
Check out these examples of correct and incorrect sentences.