Chapter 50 · B1

Other Prepositions & Prepositional Phrases

Might help first: Ch. 47 — Impersonal Constructions, Ch. 49 — Core Prepositions: A, De, En, Con, Ch. 26 — El Pretérito Indefinido (Preterite): Regular Verbs, Ch. 28 — El Pretérito Imperfecto (Imperfect) (a suggestion, never a requirement)

Beyond por, para, and the core four from the last two chapters, Spanish has a second, smaller tier of prepositions — each one narrower in range, but each still earning its own place because no other word does quite its job. This chapter works through that tier as a scannable inventory, moves on to the handful of fixed prepositional phrases built by combining ordinary words, and finishes with one of Spanish’s most genuinely confusing systems for an English speaker: three closely related ways — desde, desde hace, and hace…que — of saying how long something has been going on, each built on a different piece of grammar and each pairing with a different tense.

Core Pattern: A Working Inventory of the Smaller Prepositions

The nine prepositions below are worth learning as one set, since several form natural pairs or contrasts with each other. Each gets one core meaning and a couple of examples — treat this section as a reference to come back to, not something to memorize in one sitting.

Sin, Sobre, and Bajo: Absence, Surface, and Underneath

Sin means “without”:

Prefiero el café sin azúcar.

I prefer coffee without sugar.

Se fue sin decir adiós.

He left without saying goodbye.

sin, like every Spanish preposition, is always followed by the infinitive, never a gerund (Chapter 42).

Sobre covers three related senses: on top of something (physical), about a topic, and — with a clock time — “around, approximately”:

El mando está sobre la mesa.

The remote is on the table.

El documental trata sobre el cambio climático.

The documentary is about climate change.

Llegamos sobre las ocho.

We'll arrive around eight.

sobre plus a clock time means 'around/approximately' — a third sense distinct from 'on top of' and 'about.'

Bajo means “under, beneath,” used both literally and figuratively:

El gato duerme bajo la cama.

The cat sleeps under the bed.

Bajo estas circunstancias, prefiero esperar.

Under these circumstances, I'd rather wait.

A common figurative extension — bajo introducing the conditions something happens under, not just physical position.

Entre: Between and Among

Entre covers both “between” (two things) and “among” (more than two) — Spanish doesn’t split these the way English does:

La tienda está entre el banco y la farmacia.

The store is between the bank and the pharmacy.

El ganador está entre estos tres candidatos.

The winner is among these three candidates.

Hacia and Hasta: Direction Without Arrival vs. a Boundary Reached

Hacia (“toward”) describes the direction of movement without claiming arrival. Hasta (“up to, as far as, until”) marks a limit actually reached:

Caminamos hacia el centro.

We walked toward downtown.

hacia says nothing about whether you arrived — just the direction of movement.

Caminamos hasta el centro.

We walked all the way downtown.

hasta marks the walk's endpoint as reached — contrast with hacia above.

La tienda está abierta hasta las diez.

The store is open until ten.

The same 'boundary reached' logic, extended from a place to a time limit.

Desde: A Starting Point in Space or Time

Desde marks the point something starts from — spatial or temporal:

Desde mi ventana se ve el mar.

From my window you can see the sea.

A spatial starting point.

Trabajo aquí desde marzo.

I've worked here since March.

A temporal starting point — this time-expression use of desde gets its full treatment, alongside desde hace and hace...que, later in this chapter.

Ante and Tras: Formal “Before” and “After”

Ante and tras are more written and formal than their everyday counterparts, common in journalism, official language, and literary prose:

Ante tantas dudas, decidió consultarlo con un abogado.

Faced with so many doubts, he decided to consult a lawyer.

ante here means 'faced with/in the presence of,' almost always figurative.

Tras el partido, los dos equipos se saludaron.

After the match, the two teams greeted each other.

tras is common in written and journalistic Spanish; everyday speech usually reaches for después de instead.

Building Out: Compound Prepositional Phrases

Everyday Location Phrases Built with De

Spanish builds a large family of location prepositions by combining an adverb with de — and in everyday speech, several of these are actually more common than the single-word formal prepositions above for the same idea (debajo de instead of bajo, delante de/detrás de instead of ante/tras):

Phrase	Meaning
debajo de	underneath
encima de	on top of
delante de	in front of
detrás de	behind
cerca de	near
lejos de	far from
dentro de	inside
fuera de	outside
alrededor de	around

El perro duerme debajo de la mesa.

The dog sleeps under the table.

Vivimos cerca de la playa, pero lejos del centro.

We live near the beach, but far from downtown.

lejos del = lejos de + el — the same al/del contraction rule from Chapter 3 applies here too, since de is still de.

Fixed Prepositional Phrases

A closed, useful list of compound phrases built from a fixed combination of words, each doing the job of a single preposition:

Phrase	Meaning
a través de	through, by means of
a pesar de	despite, in spite of
en cuanto a	as for, regarding
junto a	next to, together with
además de	besides, in addition to
en lugar de / en vez de	instead of
acerca de	about, concerning
frente a	facing, opposite

Conseguimos el permiso a través de un amigo.

We got the permit through a friend.

A pesar del tráfico, llegamos a tiempo.

Despite the traffic, we arrived on time.

a pesar del = a pesar de + el, another del contraction.

El hotel está junto a la playa, no frente a ella.

The hotel is next to the beach, not facing it.

junto a (right beside) and frente a (facing, across from) describe different spatial relationships and are easy to mix up.

Nuance, Exceptions & Contrast: Desde vs. Desde Hace vs. Hace…Que

Chapter 47 already introduced hace + time + que for describing an action that’s been going on for a stretch of time, and promised the full system belonged here. Spanish gives you three overlapping ways to talk about duration and starting points, and the genuine difficulty isn’t any one of them alone — it’s knowing which one fits which situation, and which tense each one pairs with.

Hace + Time + Que, and Its Twin, Desde Hace

To say an action has been going on for a length of time and is still true right now, Spanish offers two equally natural, interchangeable word orders — both pairing with the present tense, because the action is still happening as you speak:

Hace tres años que vivo en Barcelona.

I've lived in Barcelona for three years.

Hace + [duration] + que + present tense — que introduces the clause describing what's been going on.

Vivo en Barcelona desde hace tres años.

I've lived in Barcelona for three years.

Exactly the same meaning as the sentence above, just built verb-first with desde hace instead of hace...que — Spanish genuinely offers both orders.

Desde: Marking the Starting Point Itself

Desde is different from the two patterns above in one key way: it doesn’t state a duration at all — it names the specific point something started from, and lets the listener work out how long that is.

Vivo en Barcelona desde 2021.

I've lived in Barcelona since 2021.

desde + a specific point (a year, a date, an event) — not a length of time the way hace tres años is.

When that starting point is itself an event rather than a date, desde que introduces a full clause, and the event is usually marked with the preterite — the tense for a bounded, completed action (Chapter 26) — even though the main clause describes something still ongoing:

No he vuelto a fumar desde que lo dejé.

I haven't smoked again since I quit.

dejé (preterite) marks the one-time event that started the situation; he vuelto (present perfect) describes the ongoing result — Chapter 26's preterite doing its normal job inside this larger pattern.

The Past-Tense Parallel: Hacía…Que and Desde Hacía

Move the whole situation into the past — describing a duration that was still ongoing at some earlier moment, not right now — and every piece above shifts to the imperfect (Chapter 28), for exactly the reason the imperfect exists: an ongoing state with no defined endpoint from the perspective of that past moment.

Hacía tres años que vivía en Barcelona cuando conocí a mi esposa.

I had been living in Barcelona for three years when I met my wife.

Hacía (imperfect) + [duration] + que + vivía (imperfect) — both halves shift to the imperfect together, mirroring hace...que's present-tense pairing one tense back.

Vivía en Barcelona desde hacía tres años cuando la conocí.

I had been living in Barcelona for three years when I met her.

The same desde hace reordering from the present-tense pattern above, shifted one tense back to desde hacía.

Desde itself, pointing at a starting event rather than a duration, usually keeps the preterite for that starting event even inside a past-tense sentence — only the main, ongoing-result clause shifts back to the imperfect:

No fumaba desde que lo dejó.

He hadn't been smoking since he quit.

dejó (preterite) marks the bounded quitting event; fumaba (imperfect) describes the ongoing non-smoking state around it — the exact same desde que pattern as the present-tense example above, moved one tense back.

Summary Table and Common Mistakes

Pattern	Structure	Tense	Meaning
hace…que	Hace + duration + que + verb	Present	“for [duration],” ongoing now
desde hace	verb + desde hace + duration	Present	Same meaning, reordered
desde	verb + desde + point	Present / Present Perfect	“since [point],” a starting moment
hacía…que	Hacía + duration + que + verb	Imperfect	“had been [duration],” ongoing at a past moment
desde hacía	verb + desde hacía + duration	Imperfect	Same meaning, reordered

The most common errors with this system, in order of how often they show up: reaching for a perfect tense (he vivido) instead of the plain present when the action is still ongoing; forgetting to shift hace to hacía when narrating in the past; and pairing desde directly with a bare duration instead of a point.

Vivo aquí desde hace tres años, no 'desde tres años.'

I've lived here for three years, not the ungrammatical 'since three years.'

desde needs a point (desde 2021, desde que llegué), never a bare duration on its own — pair a duration with hace or desde hace, not desde alone.

Bringing It Together

Faced with a preposition beyond por/para/a/de/en/con, most of the work is simply knowing which narrow job each one owns — sin for absence, sobre/bajo for surface and underneath, entre for between/among, hacia/hasta for direction versus a reached limit, ante/tras for formal before/after. The compound de-phrases fill in the rest of everyday spatial and logical relationships. And when duration or a starting point is the actual question, work through it in order: still ongoing right now → hace…que or desde hace, both present tense; a specific starting point rather than a length → desde; the whole situation moved into the past → shift every piece one tense back, to hacía…que and desde hacía.

Vivo en Madrid desde hace cinco años, aunque he viajado mucho a través de Europa. A pesar de eso, sigo enamorado de esta ciudad, y no pienso irme de aquí.

I've lived in Madrid for five years, although I've traveled a lot throughout Europe. Despite that, I'm still in love with this city, and I don't plan on leaving here.

desde hace (ongoing duration), a través de (through), a pesar de (despite) — several of this chapter's constructions in one natural passage.

Where to Go Next

Chapter 47, Impersonal Constructions — the hace + time preview this chapter’s desde/desde hace/hace…que section completes in full.
Chapter 49, Core Prepositions: A, De, En, Con — the four workhorse prepositions this chapter’s smaller inventory builds around.
Chapter 48, Por vs. Para — Spanish’s other major preposition system, its own dedicated contrast chapter.
Chapter 26, El Pretérito Indefinido (Preterite): Regular Verbs — the tense behind desde que’s starting-point clause.
Chapter 28, El Pretérito Imperfecto (Imperfect) — the tense every piece of this chapter’s time system shifts to once the whole situation moves into the past.
Chapter 45, Verbal Periphrases (Perífrasis Verbales) — llevar + gerundio, the colloquial alternative to hace/desde hace covered above.

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12 exercises · multiple-choice, fill-blank, error-correction…