For many students, one of the trickiest parts of learning Spanish is understanding when to use “por” and “para”. If you look up each of these words in the Spanish-English dictionary, you’ll find that they have various different meanings but that the primary one is “for”. Despite this, there is a big difference between “por” and “para”.
In this blog post, we’ll work through a few key tips for “por” vs “para” in Spanish, so that you can better understand which one to opt for in different situations. If you want to know how to learn to speak Spanish fluently, it’s vital to understand when to use “por” and when to use “para”, so let’s get started!
Let’s start off with “por” in this guide for when to use “por” vs “para” in Spanish. With “por”, it is primarily used in the following ways:
Now, let’s move on to the main uses for “para”, which is primarily used in these following ways:
Now, just because you’ve seen some examples of “por” and “para”, it doesn’t necessarily mean you suddenly know how to use “por” and “para” in Spanish consistently. Whether you’re taking online Spanish classes or even Spanish courses in Madrid, that will come with practice.
But, before you go off and practice and learn from the age-old process of making mistakes, here are two more key tips which help to explain the fundamental difference between “por” and “para”.
Firstly, think about “por” as being the reason for something, while “para” is the purpose. These may seem like similar concepts, yet there is a difference. In this scenario, think of “por” along the lines of “because of” and “para” as “in order to”.
Secondly, when you’re using these terms to describe relationships between people and things, “por” usually refers to the person who did something, while “para” is used to explain who the thing was done for. You’ll see both “por” and “para” used this way with the following examples: “This book was written by my mother and I bought a copy for her / Este libro fue escrito por mi madre y compré una copia para ella.”
There are also a number of set phrases which include either “por” or “para” in them, and it’s also important to learn these. Here are a few of them:
When you break them down, many of these little expressions do follow the same rules as above, in terms of what they convey. The good news with these phrases is that they are so common that you should easily pick them up, even while you’re still getting to grips with the difference between “por” and “para”.
