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Five Minute Study - SPANISH and ENGLISH compared Guía de la gramática inglesa...
En estas lecciones breves se comparan el inglés hablado y coloquial con el español con el fin de ayudar al estudiante a apreciar tanto las diferencias como las similitudes lingüísticas entre los dos idiomas.
Prepositions (10)
Prepositions after certain words and expressions in Spanish and English.
Prepositions after certain words and expressions do not always translate word for word, ie. we often expect the translation of de to be of etc. I include a list here of problem areas of translation between Spanish and English prepositions.
He's afraid of the dark Tiene miedo de la oscuridad
She's afraid to go out at night (afraid + infinitive) Le da miedo salir de noche
He's frightened / of / by / spiders Tiene miedo de las arañas
She's nervous about the exams Ella está muy nerviosa por lo de los exámenes
He's terrified / of / by / storms Tiene pánico / tiene terror / a las tormentas
Her father is rather anxious about her health Su padre está algo preocupado por su salud
They don't agree about anything No están de acuerdo en nada
Yes, I agree with you Sí, estoy de acuerdo contigo (formal = con usted)
They agreed to meet later (agree + infinitive) Quedaron en verse más tarde
I eventually agreed to lend a hand (agree + infinitive) Al final consentí en echarle una mano
We couldn't agree on a price No nos pusimos de acuerdo en el precio
The case of "all" or "all of"
Usually, in English, we can use all or all of before a noun and before this and that. But the nouns must have some article (a, the); possessive pronoun (my, your etc.); or other determiner (this, that, these, those). Nouns without these elements take all and not all of. Spanish doesn't take a preposition after todo or todos and as an adjective todo will agree in number and gender (toda, todas)
All (of) his friends have cars Todos sus amigos tienen coches
All (of) the beer is in the fridge Toda la cerveza está en el frigorífico
I don't like all (of) that No me gusta todo eso
All (of) my windows were broken Todas mis ventanas estaban rotas
but,
All men have problems doing two things at the same time (not
Todos los hombres tienen problemas en hacer dos cosas a la vez
All good doctors earn a big salary Todos los buenos médicos ganan un buen sueldo
(Note that in Spanish, when all means every we can use the singular: Todo buen médico gana un buen sueldo)
The exception to the all and all of rule in English is before personal pronouns where only all of should be used:
All of them are crazy Todos (ellos) / Todas (ellas) están locos / locas
All of it has gone bad Todo se ha podrido
All of us are leaving Todos nosotros nos vamos
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