Prepositions in Spanish: The Complete Guide With Examples

What are prepositions in Spanish?

A preposition is a small word that links a noun, a pronoun or a phrase to the rest of the sentence, showing the relationship between them. In the sentence "the book is on the table," the word "on" is a preposition telling you where the book sits. Spanish works exactly the same way, just with its own set of words: el libro está sobre la mesa. The preposition sobre does the job of "on," connecting the book to the table.

Prepositions in Spanish carry a lot of the everyday meaning of a sentence even though each word is tiny. They tell you position, as in en la casa (in the house). They tell you direction, as in hacia el mar (toward the sea). They tell you time, as in desde el lunes (since Monday). They tell you cause, purpose, means, possession and much more. Change the preposition and you can change the whole meaning of a sentence, so getting them right matters more than their small size suggests.

Here is the good news and the bad news together. The good news is that Spanish prepositions never change form. Unlike nouns, adjectives or verbs, a preposition does not agree in gender or number and it does not conjugate. Con is always con, whether it comes before a masculine word, a feminine word, a singular or a plural. There is nothing to memorize about how the word itself behaves. The bad news is that knowing the word is only half the battle. The real difficulty is knowing which preposition a given situation wants, because that choice often does not match English at all.

That mismatch is the heart of the whole topic, so it is worth stating plainly right away. You cannot reliably translate an English preposition into a Spanish one word for word. English "in" is sometimes en and sometimes dentro de. Spanish en covers both "in" and "on." English "to" is often a, but sometimes para, and sometimes nothing at all. The learner who tries to swap prepositions one for one will be wrong constantly. The learner who treats each preposition as its own Spanish word, with its own range of uses, will get them right. This guide is built around that second approach.

The full list of Spanish prepositions

Spanish grammar traditionally lists a fixed set of simple, one-word prepositions. Generations of Spanish schoolchildren memorized them in alphabetical order, and it is still a useful list to have in your head. Here is the classic set, updated for how the language is actually used today:

a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, tras, versus, vía.

A couple of notes on that list so you do not waste time. Two of them, cabe (meaning "next to") and so (meaning "under"), are archaic. You will meet so only in frozen expressions like so pena de (under penalty of) and you can safely ignore cabe entirely. At the other end, versus and vía are modern additions that mostly show up in formal, legal or travel contexts. So the truly living, everyday list is shorter than the full recital suggests.

For practical purposes, these are the prepositions you will use constantly and should prioritize:

• a: to, at, toward; also the personal a
• de: of, from, about, made of
• en: in, on, at
• con: with
• sin: without
• por: because of, through, by, per, for a duration
• para: for, in order to, toward a destination or deadline
• sobre: on, over, about (a topic)
• entre: between, among
• hacia: toward, around (approximate time)
• hasta: until, up to, as far as
• desde: from, since
• contra: against
• según: according to
• ante: before, in front of, faced with
• bajo: under, beneath
• tras: after, behind
• durante: during
• mediante: by means of, through

If you focus your energy on the first dozen or so of these, you will handle the overwhelming majority of real Spanish. The rest are useful to recognize and will settle in over time. In the sections below we take the highest-value prepositions and unpack how each one actually behaves, with examples you can copy, before pulling everything together in a single reference table near the end.

The core three: a, de and en

If you only mastered three Spanish prepositions, these would be the ones. A, de and en appear in almost every sentence you will ever speak, and each one stretches across several English words, which is exactly why they trip people up. Take them one at a time.

The preposition a

The base meaning of a is movement or direction toward something, which in English is usually "to." Voy a Madrid means "I am going to Madrid." Llego a casa means "I arrive home." But a does much more than "to." It marks the time an event happens: a las tres (at three o'clock), a medianoche (at midnight). It appears in countless verb structures, such as aprender a (to learn to) and empezar a (to begin to). And it does one job that English has no equivalent for at all, the personal a, which marks a human direct object and which we give its own section below because it matters so much.

Some quick patterns to anchor a in your ear:

• Vamos a la playa. We are going to the beach. (direction)
• La clase empieza a las nueve. Class starts at nine. (time)
• Están a dos kilómetros. They are two kilometers away. (distance)
• Aprendo a cocinar. I am learning to cook. (with a verb)

The preposition de

De is arguably the busiest preposition in the language. Its two core meanings are "of" (possession and relationship) and "from" (origin). El coche de Ana is "Ana's car," literally "the car of Ana," because Spanish has no apostrophe-s and builds possession with de instead. Soy de México means "I am from México." On top of those, de tells you what something is made of: una mesa de madera (a wooden table, a table of wood). It introduces topics: hablamos de política (we talk about politics). And it packs into descriptions: la chica de pelo rojo (the girl with red hair).

Watch de in action:

• Es el libro de mi hermano. It is my brother's book. (possession)
• Venimos de la oficina. We are coming from the office. (origin)
• Un anillo de oro. A gold ring. (material)
• Un vaso de agua. A glass of water. (contents)

The preposition en

En is where English "in" and "on" merge into a single Spanish word, which surprises learners at first. El gato está en la caja is "the cat is in the box." El libro está en la mesa is "the book is on the table." Same preposition, both English meanings. En also handles "at" for locations, as in estoy en el trabajo (I am at work), and it covers means of transport: viajo en tren (I travel by train). For time, en marks months, years and seasons: en agosto (in August), en 2026 (in 2026), en verano (in summer).

A few to lock it in:

• Vivimos en España. We live in Spain.
• Las llaves están en la mesa. The keys are on the table.
• Pienso en ti. I am thinking of you. (a fixed pattern; pensar en, not de)
• Voy en coche. I am going by car.

con, sin, sobre, entre and the rest

Beyond the core three, a handful of prepositions come up constantly and are refreshingly close to their English cousins. These are quicker to learn, so we can move through them in a group, with a note wherever Spanish does something unexpected.

con means "with." Café con leche is "coffee with milk." Voy con mis amigos is "I am going with my friends." The one wrinkle is the pronoun forms: "with me" is conmigo, "with you" is contigo, fused into single words rather than con mí or con ti. Those two are worth memorizing on their own.

sin means "without," the clean opposite of con. Café sin azúcar is "coffee without sugar." Salió sin decir nada is "he left without saying anything." Note that after sin, Spanish uses the infinitive where English uses the "-ing" form: sin hablar (without speaking).

sobre has two lives. Physically it means "on" or "over": el cuadro sobre el sofá (the painting over the sofá). Figuratively it means "about," in the sense of a topic: un libro sobre historia (a book about history). It can also mean "around" with numbers and times: sobre las ocho (around eight).

entre means "between" or "among." Entre tú y yo is "between you and me," and notice it takes subject pronouns tú and yo rather than the object forms you might expect, which is a small but famous exception. Entre los árboles is "among the trees."

hacia means "toward," pointing in a direction without necessarily arriving. Caminamos hacia el río is "we walk toward the river." With time it softens to "around": hacia las cinco (around five). Mind the accent: the preposition hacia has no accent, while hacía with an accent is the imperfect of hacer (I was doing), so a single mark separates two different words.

hasta means "until" in time and "up to" or "as far as" in space. Trabajo hasta las seis is "I work until six." Caminamos hasta la esquina is "we walk as far as the corner." It also appears in the everyday goodbye hasta luego (see you later, literally "until later").

desde means "from" or "since," marking a starting point in space or time. Desde aquí is "from here." Desde el lunes is "since Monday." It often pairs with hasta to frame a range: desde las nueve hasta las cinco (from nine until five).

contra means "against": jugamos contra ellos (we play against them), apoyado contra la pared (leaning against the wall). según means "according to": según el profesor (according to the teacher), and unusually it can take a subject pronoun, as in según tú (according to you). durante means "during": durante la reunión (during the meeting). ante means "before" or "faced with" in a figurative sense: ante el juez (before the judge). bajo means "under," often figuratively: bajo presión (under pressure). tras means "after" or "behind": día tras día (day after day).

Por vs para, the famous pair

No pair of prepositions in Spanish causes more trouble than por and para. Both frequently translate to English "for," so learners guess, and they guess wrong roughly half the time. The fix is to stop translating "for" and instead learn the distinct jobs each word does. Here is the single most useful mental shortcut before we get into detail: por looks backward to a cause or a route; para looks forward to a purpose or a destination. Por is the reason behind and the path through. Para is the goal ahead and the point of it all.

When to use por

Por covers cause, reason, means, exchange, duration and movement through a place. It answers "why" and "how," and it points to what is behind an action rather than where it is headed.

• Cause or reason: Gracias por tu ayuda. Thanks for your help. (because of your help)
• Movement through: Caminamos por el parque. We walk through the park.
• Means or method: Te llamo por teléfono. I will call you by phone.
• Exchange or price: Lo compré por diez euros. I bought it for ten euros.
• Duration: Estudié por dos horas. I studied for two hours.
• On behalf of: Lo hago por ti. I do it for your sake.
• Per, in rates: cien kilómetros por hora: a hundred kilometers per hour.

When to use para

Para covers purpose, goal, destination, recipient and deadline. It answers "what for" and "toward what end," always pointing ahead to a target.

• Purpose or goal: Estudio para aprender. I study in order to learn.
• Recipient: Este regalo es para ti. This gift is for you.
• Destination: Salgo para Madrid. I am leaving for Madrid.
• Deadline: La tarea es para el lunes. The homework is for Monday.
• Opinion: Para mí, es fácil. For me, it is easy.
• Employer or use: Trabajo para una empresa grande. I work for a big company.

Notice how a single English sentence can flip meaning depending on which one you pick. Lo hice por ti means "I did it because of you" or "for your sake," pointing back to you as the motivation. Lo hice para ti means "I made it for you to have," pointing forward to you as the recipient. Same English "for you," two different truths. That is exactly why translating the word "for" fails and why you have to think in terms of the job being done.

One more practical tip. Several fixed expressions simply take por and you should learn them as whole chunks rather than reasoning them out each time: por favor (please), por eso (that is why), por ejemplo (for example), por fin (finally), por supuesto (of course), por lo menos (at least). Bank those and a big slice of everyday por usage takes care of itself. If you want the wider picture of Spanish sentence building, our guide on Spanish verbs pairs naturally with prepositions, since so many verbs pull a specific one along with them.

The personal a

The personal a is the Spanish feature that English speakers most often miss, simply because English has nothing like it. The rule is this: when the direct object of a verb is a specific person, a group of people, a pet, or something treated as a person, you place the preposition a in front of it, even though nothing appears in the English translation.

Compare these two sentences:

• Veo la casa. I see the house. (object is a thing, no a)
• Veo a María. I see María. (object is a person, add a)

Both mean "I see something," but because María is a person receiving the action directly, Spanish flags her with a. There is no "to" in the English at all. This is not the directional a that means "to." It is a grammatical marker whose only job is to say "the direct object here is a person." Leave it out and your Spanish will sound distinctly foreign, because native speakers use it automatically every time.

Where the personal a applies:

• Specific people: Llamo a mi madre. I call my mother.
• Pets and loved animals: Quiero a mi perro. I love my dog.
• Indefinite pronouns for people: No veo a nadie. I do not see anyone. Busco a alguien. I am looking for someone.
• Personified nouns: groups, countries or things given human weight, as in Los niños temen a la oscuridad in a poetic sense.

Where you drop it:

• Things: Compro un coche. I buy a car. (no personal a for objects)
• Non-specific people: Busco un profesor. I am looking for a teacher (any teacher). Compare Busco a un profesor, which implies one particular teacher you have in mind.
• After the verb tener, usually: Tengo dos hermanos. I have two brothers, with no a, even though brothers are people, because tener normally drops it.

That last contrast, busco un profesor versus busco a un profesor, shows how the personal a can carry meaning on its own: adding it signals a specific, real person rather than a general type. It is subtle, and it is one of those things that clicks far faster from hearing it in real sentences than from studying the rule.

Contractions: al and del

Spanish has exactly two mandatory contractions, and both involve a preposition meeting the masculine singular article el. They are not optional and not stylistic. You must use them, every time the pieces come together.

a + el = al. Whenever the preposition a is immediately followed by el, they fuse into al. So "I am going to the park" is voy al parque, never voy a el parque. Likewise al lado del río (beside the river), al final (at the end).

de + el = del. Whenever de is immediately followed by el, they fuse into del. So "the boy's book" is el libro del chico, never el libro de el chico. Likewise vengo del trabajo (I am coming from work), la puerta del coche (the car door).

Now the important limits, because learners over-apply these:

• Only with el, not the other articles. The contraction only happens with masculine singular el. You never contract with la, los or las. So it is del profesor but de la profesora, al hotel but a los hoteles.
• Not with the pronoun él. The word el with an accent is the pronoun "he," and it never contracts. El regalo es de él (the gift is from him) stays split, because that el is a pronoun, not an article.
• Not with proper names carrying El. If a title or place name includes a capital El as part of its name, you generally keep it separate: Vengo de El Salvador, not del Salvador.

These two little fusions are among the easiest rules in Spanish to get fully right, because there are only two of them and they are completely regular. Drill al and del until they are automatic and you will never think about them again.

Verbs that take a fixed preposition

Here is a truth that separates fluent speakers from careful students: in Spanish, many verbs come welded to a specific preposition, and the pairing rarely matches English. You do not choose the preposition by logic. You learn it as part of the verb, the way you learned the verb itself. This is one of the single most productive things you can drill, because a wrong preposition after a verb is an instant giveaway of a non-native speaker.

Some verbs take a preposition where English uses none:

• asistir a: to attend. Asisto a la reunión. (not "attend to")
• entrar en / entrar a: to enter. Entro en la sala.
• buscar: to look for, but note it takes no preposition: busco mis llaves, not busco por.
• casarse con: to marry. Se casó con Ana. (with, not "to")
• soñar con: to dream about. Sueña con viajar. (with, not "about")

Some verbs pair predictably with a before another verb, especially verbs of beginning, motion or learning:

• empezar a, comenzar a: to begin to. Empiezo a entender.
• aprender a: to learn to. Aprendo a nadar.
• ir a: to be going to. Voy a estudiar.
• ayudar a: to help to. Te ayudo a cocinar.

Some pair with de:

• acabar de: to have just. Acabo de llegar. (I have just arrived)
• tratar de: to try to. Trato de aprender.
• dejar de: to stop doing. Dejé de fumar.
• acordarse de: to remember. Me acuerdo de ti.

And some pair with en:

• pensar en: to think about. Pienso en el futuro. (in, not "about")
• insistir en: to insist on. Insisto en pagar.
• tardar en: to take time to. Tardo en llegar.

The practical takeaway is simple but demanding: whenever you meet a new verb, learn the preposition it carries in the same breath, and store them together as a single unit. Do not learn pensar and then wonder later which preposition to use. Learn pensar en as one item. This habit, more than any rule, is what makes your prepositions come out right. Our piece on how to memorize vocabulary shows how to turn these verb-plus-preposition chunks into cards that actually stick.

Compound and phrasal prepositions

Beyond the simple one-word prepositions, Spanish builds longer prepositional phrases by combining a simple preposition with another word, usually ending in de. These compound prepositions handle precise spatial and logical relationships, and they are extremely common in everyday speech. The good news is they are mostly transparent once you know the pattern, and many of them map fairly closely to English.

Spatial ones you will use constantly:

• delante de: in front of. El coche está delante de la casa.
• detrás de: behind. El jardín está detrás de la casa.
• encima de: on top of, above. El libro está encima de la mesa.
• debajo de: under, below. El gato está debajo de la cama.
• dentro de: inside. Las llaves están dentro del cajón.
• fuera de: outside. Estamos fuera de la ciudad.
• cerca de: near. Vivo cerca del centro.
• lejos de: far from. El pueblo está lejos de aquí.
• al lado de: next to. La farmacia está al lado del banco.
• enfrente de: across from, opposite. El hotel está enfrente de la playa.
• alrededor de: around. Los árboles están alrededor del lago.

Logical and temporal ones:

• antes de: before (in time). Antes de comer, me lavo las manos.
• después de: after (in time). Después de la clase, voy a casa.
• además de: in addition to. Además de español, hablo francés.
• a pesar de: in spite of. A pesar de la lluvia, salimos.
• en lugar de / en vez de: instead of. En vez de café, tomo té.
• a través de: through, by means of. Aprendí a través de la práctica.

Notice how many of these end in de, which then contracts to del before el: cerca del centro, debajo del coche, después del trabajo. The contraction rule from earlier flows straight into these phrases, so once you have al and del automatic, the compound prepositions inherit that reflex for free.

The big reference table

Here is a single table pulling together the high-value Spanish prepositions, their main English senses, and a model sentence for each. Bookmark this section and come back whenever you are unsure. Say each example out loud as you read it, because prepositions live in your ear far more than on the page.

If you want to hear how these prepositions sound in fast, natural speech, it helps to pair the table with pronunciation work, because the vowels in por, para and de are short and crisp in Spanish. Our guide on Spanish pronunciation covers exactly those sounds, and you can build a broader base of everyday words with our list of common Spanish words.

Common preposition mistakes

Prepositions are where careful learners keep slipping long after their grammar is otherwise strong, because the errors are small and habit-driven. Here are the mistakes that come up again and again, and how to stop making each one.

1. Translating English prepositions directly. The number one error. Saying pienso de ti because English says "think about you," when Spanish demands pienso en ti. Or busco por for "look for," when buscar takes no preposition at all. The cure is to learn each verb with its preposition as a fixed unit, never by translating the English one.
2. Forgetting the personal a. Saying veo María instead of veo a María. English has no marker for a human direct object, so learners simply leave it out. Train the habit of pausing before a person-object and inserting a.
3. Guessing between por and para. Reaching for whichever "for" comes to mind. Slow down and ask: am I pointing back to a cause or route (por), or forward to a purpose or destination (para)? The direction of the arrow decides it.
4. Failing to contract al and del. Writing or saying a el parque and de el chico. These contractions are mandatory. Drill them until al and del are reflexes and the uncontracted forms sound wrong to your own ear.
5. Over-contracting. The opposite slip: contracting with la, los, las or with the pronoun el. Remember the fusion happens only with the masculine singular article el. It is de la casa, never dela casa, and es de él (from him) stays split.
6. Using the wrong pronoun after a preposition. Saying para yo or con mí. After most prepositions you need mí and ti (para mí, de ti), con fuses to conmigo and contigo, and only entre and según take yo and tú.
7. Confusing en with a for location versus motion. Using en when you mean movement toward, or a when you mean static location. Motion toward a place takes a (voy a la escuela); being located somewhere takes en (estoy en la escuela).
8. Reaching for an infinitive incorrectly after prepositions. This one Spanish actually makes easy: after any preposition, the verb goes in the infinitive, not the -ing form. It is antes de comer, sin hablar, para aprender, never a gerund. English speakers who expect "-ing" get this wrong until they trust the rule.

The thread through all of these is the same lesson from the very start of this guide: prepositions do not translate. They are learned as Spanish patterns, ideally out loud and in context, until the right one simply feels right. Rules get you started, but only repetition in real sentences makes the correct preposition automatic. If you want a broader plan for building that kind of instinct, our overview of the best way to learn Spanish puts preposition practice inside the wider path to fluency.

How SPAIKING helps you get them right

Prepositions are the clearest example of a part of Spanish you cannot truly master by reading. You can memorize that pensar takes en and that por looks back while para looks forward, and still freeze mid-sentence when you actually have to speak, because in real time there is no space to run through rules. The only thing that makes prepositions automatic is producing them out loud, correctly, hundreds of times, until the wrong one starts to sound wrong to your own ear. That is exactly what SPAIKING is built for.

Here is how it fits the way you should be learning. You read a guide like this one to understand the patterns, then you open SPAIKING and have a real spoken conversation with an AI partner, deliberately using the prepositions you just studied. When you say pienso de ti by mistake, the correction comes right there, in the moment, so the right form pienso en ti lands while the sentence is still warm. When you guess wrong between por and para, you find out immediately, in context, which is far stickier than getting a red mark on a worksheet an hour later.

The parts that matter most for a topic like prepositions:

• It corrects you in real time. Preposition errors are invisible to your own ear, which is why they persist for years. Live correction surfaces them the moment they happen and replaces the wrong pattern with the right one.
• It is always available. You can drill por and para in twenty real sentences at midnight without booking a tutor or bothering a friend, so the repetition that prepositions demand is actually within reach.
• It is judgment-free. You can forget the personal a ten times in a row and the AI simply keeps the conversation going, which is what finally gets nervous learners to speak enough to fix the habit.
• It works in full sentences. Prepositions only make sense inside real sentences, and SPAIKING has you producing whole spoken sentences, which is the exact context where the right preposition has to become automatic.

Think of it as the bridge between knowing the rule and living it. This guide gives you the map of Spanish prepositions, every preposition, every use, every trap. SPAIKING is where you walk the map out loud until the paths are worn in and you no longer have to think about which one to take. You can start on the pricing page and begin turning these rules into real, spoken Spanish today. For a natural next step, our guide on how to speak Spanish shows where prepositions fit into the bigger picture of actually holding a conversation.