In this post, we are going to see a very common mistake that people make when try to use the different prepositions that we have learned –A, DESDE y HASTA-; let’s see it in a clear example to show you what we are trying to say.
Here it is the question first, asking a specific limit point in time on when the movie ends:
¿HASTA QUÉ HORA ES LA PELÍCULA?
UNTIL WHAT TIME IS THE MOVIE?
9:00 PM
LA PELÍCULA ES HASTA LAS NUEVE
THE MOVIE IS UNTIL THE NINE
→ This is the correct answer giving the correct specific ending point in time of the movie.
→ And this is the common mistake that we have seen in our lessons thousand of times:
¿HASTA QUÉ HORA ES LA PELÍCULA?
UNTIL WHAT TIME IS THE MOVIE?
9:00 PM
LA PELÍCULA ES HASTA A LAS NUEVE
THE MOVIE IS UNTIL AT THE NINE
◊ In this wrong answer people use both prepositions, one after another; the preposition –HASTA– means –UNTIL– and the preposition –A– means –AT– and they will never, ever will come along together.
We will never use two prepositions in a row because they have their own specific meaning (time limit, starting point, so on) and they can’t be mixed because even if grammatically was possible, that of course is not, the meaning of them, contradict each other.
→ Let’s see another example with the same mistake this time with the preposition –DESDE-:
¿DESDE QUÉ HORA ES LA PELÍCULA?
SINCE WHAT TIME IS THE MOVIE?
8:00 PM
LA PELÍCULA ES DESDE A LAS OCHO
THE MOVIE IS SINCE AT THE EIGHT
◊ Avoiding this common mistake is just a matter of using different prepositions in our communication in Spanish, so just keep it in mind that there will never ever, two prepositions in a row.
