Spanish Prepositional Pronouns

Understanding Prepositions

Do you know what prepositions are? They indicate location as well as placement in time (such as before and after). They include words like “about, above, across, after, against, along, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond...” and so on.

Examples of prepositional phrases in use (with the prepositions in bold) include:

• The cat was on the mat.
• The trapeze artist hung above the crowd.
• There were many stars in the sky.

Prepositional Pronouns

Sometimes, the object of a proposition (in the above examples, “mat,” “crowd,” and “sky”) is a pronoun like “you,” “me,” or “it.”

For example, look at the following sentences. The prepositional pronoun is in bold.

• He sat in front of me.
• They left before us.
• Everyone but them got to go.

In Spanish, the prepositional pronouns are exactly the same as the subject pronouns with the exceptions of “mí” and “ti”. Look at the chart below.

Note that the word “mí” has an accent mark over the “i,” whereas “ti” has no accent mark.

Por ejemplo:

1. Me siento entre él y ella.
- I sit between him and her.

2. Marco sale antes de Uds.
- Marco leaves before you.

3. Quieren ir con nosotros.
- They want to go with us.

The Exceptions: Entre Tú y Yo, Conmigo and Contigo

Some combinations can sound a bit strange, though. Try saying, “entre ti y mí” (between you and me). The sequence of “ee” sounds can be hard to say!

For that reason, if you need to combine “you and me” in a phrase, use the subject pronouns instead:

entre tú y yo

Por ejemplo:

Another strange sound occurs when you want to say “with me” or “with you.” Try saying “con mí” or “con ti.” It’s hard to keep the words separated, isn’t it?

For that reason, if you need to say, “with me,” or, “with you,” use the following words:

conmigo
or
contigo

Por ejemplo:

In the next section we’ll work on Spanish Demonstrative Adjectives: Talking about this, that and that one over there.