Spanish · Chapter 28 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Verbs with prepositions (regimen preposicional)
pensar en, sonar con, depender de, casarse con, asistir a - the verbs that demand a fixed preposition Spanish rarely shares with English, grouped by de/en/con/a/por, plus the buscar/pedir/esperar verbs that take none.
The short version
The preposition belongs to the verb
The preposition attaches to the Spanish verb, not to the meaning, and it rarely matches the English one. You think in something, dream with it, depend of it and marry with someone. There is no rule to extract, so stop translating the little word and learn the pair as a single unit, the way you learn a noun's gender.
Pienso en ti todos los días.
Buscar already contains the for
The mirror error is just as common. Buscar, pedir, esperar, mirar and escuchar already bake the English preposition into their meaning, so adding one is wrong: busco trabajo, not busco por trabajo; te espero, not espero por ti. The one wrinkle is the personal a before a specific person, which is a different rule doing its job.
Busco trabajo.
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