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  #1  
Old August 04, 2010, 06:23 PM
maybnxtseasn maybnxtseasn is offline
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Help understanding this

yo saco a su perro a caminar todos los dias
i walk your dog every day

i think i translated that right :/ my main question is why is there an "a" placed before su and before caminar? im having trouble understanding why it's there!
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  #2  
Old August 04, 2010, 06:54 PM
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The first 'a' could be used by some people, but it isn't technically supposed to be there.
The second 'a' is to introduce the verb that follows it. Many verbs need to have a preceding preposition. The infinitive 'caminar', by itself, does NOT mean 'to walk', as is taught in most textbooks and in schools all over. The English infinitive is 'to walk', but the meaning of the Spanish infinitive is simply 'walk'. The preposition 'a' is needed. I hope that helps.

Saco su perro a caminar (pasear) todos los días.

There's an 'Accents' pull-down menu just above the input box when you're typing. You can use that to insert all the special characters used in Spanish.

There's no need to use the subject pronoun 'yo' with the conjugated verb. The conjugation ending tells us who the subject is.
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  #3  
Old August 04, 2010, 08:02 PM
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Rusty.

The a word is because he's giving himself the attribute of a person right.
Please correcting me if I'm wrong.
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  #4  
Old August 04, 2010, 08:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo View Post
The a word is because he's giving him (the dog) the attribute of a person, right?
Please correcting me if I'm wrong.
Yes, that's why I said that some people would say 'a'. They're treating the dog as if it were a person.
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  #5  
Old August 05, 2010, 01:39 AM
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Thank thank jejeje.

Yes he's giving him (The dog) the meaning of a different person.
It's like to third person.
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