Quote:
Originally Posted by ElDanés
This has been baffling me for a quite a while now. It's a frequent construction, so I find it annoying that I don't know how to use it. I'm only able to read it, and understand the meaning.
This is taken from a Spanish reader I found, third line:
"Aprendo la aritmética, a leer y a escribir."
I learn arithmetics, to read and to write.
Why is a used in this sentence together with both leer and escribir? I thought that leer and escribir in themselves meant to read and to write, so it seems for me like a doubling of the to. I know that it may "just be like that," but I'd wish to learn the usage of it, so that I would be able to write such sentences myself.
Personally, I would just do it like:
Aprendo la aritmética, leer y escribir.
Thanks! |
Aprender, followed by an infinitive, always requires the 'a'. The first object,
la aritmética, isn't an infinitive. You know the other two objects are.
In another post someone asked why the 'a' (which is usually translated as 'to') has to be there in the first place. They were wondering why an infinitive, which means
to do something, would have need of the redundant
to ('a'). I explained that only the English translation of the infinitive contains the word 'to'. The Spanish infinitive can't always stand on its own, but it does in certain constructs. So, you have a learning curve.
Quiero aprender. = I want to learn.
Quiero hablar. = I want to speak.
Quiero aprender a hablar bien. = I want to learn to speak well.
Quiero aprender a caminar y a masticar chicle a la vez. = I want to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time.
