Learn about preposition "de" in Spanish: possession
In Spanish, the preposition "de" is used to express that something belongs to someone. It is a very different construction to the English equivalent using an apostrophe: 's.
Have a look at these examples to see how it works:
As you can see, in Spanish the word order is different to the English.
We name the possession first, and then the possessor, e.g "la casa" (possession) "de" (of) "Lucía" (who possesses), literally "The house of Lucía".
Remember that if the article "el" comes after "de" you need to contract the two words to "del":
The other main difference with English is the presence of the definite articles el/la/los/las before the possession, these are omitted in English.
Notice how the article los is used in "los zapatos", while in English there is no article "mum's shoes".
Just like in English we can create phrases for when there is a chain of possession, for example:
Important note:
When we talk about a things that are located in/at a place, in Spanish we still use the preposition "de" as if we were saying that that thing belongs to that place, while in English the place becomes an adjective, and there is no apostrophe. For example:
To learn about other ways to express possession, see:
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