Detective Comics (2016) #967
— Trista Mateer ,“I Still Forget We’re Not Even Friends”
Just finished reading the nightmare before kissmas, wondering what happened between the brother and his interest in the princess, only to find out there a SECOND BOOK STARING THE BROTHER????? GO LUCK YOURSELF WHATTT????
You've probably already done this, but what is the difference between "por" and "para"?
So this is an extremely important (and honestly really confusing) topic. First I have to say that in general, para is used more for a recipient of something and por usually means there's some kind of exchange happening
That's not the whole of it, but in everyday Spanish you're probably going to see para as "for" or "in order to", while por is usually "in exchange for", "per", or there's some kind of transaction or exchange
Now I'm going to go into more of the differences - but this tag also has more information overall
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First I'm going to talk about para because there's less things it's used for. Linguistically, para came from por + a... so it is literally "for" + "to" which is "in order to"
for / in order to [like para hacerlo "to do it" or "in order to do it"... or para que + subjunctive is "so that (something can happen)"]
recipients - specifically things like indirect objects, like sending letters to someone aka "that letter is FOR them"
opinions - para mí is literally "for me" but it comes out like "in my opinion"; but this can be used with any object pronoun para mí, para ti, para ella, para él, para nosotros etc.
when things are due - especially in school settings you'll see things like para el lunes which comes out like "on Monday" or "due Monday"
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With por you'll find a lot more meanings, and some of them are idiomatic like set expressions
First let me touch on a lot of the idiomatic ones because they're usually obvious and easy to list:
¿por qué? = why?
porque = because
por favor = please
por ejemplo = for example
por cierto = by the way
por ciento = percent [lit. "per cent" or "for each hundred"; as an example cien por ciento is "100%" which is used just like English either as literal mathematics or saying "totally" or "completely", or in reviews that something is very good] el porcentaje = percentage
el porvenir = the future, "what is to come"
por casualidad = by chance
por suerte = by luck, by chance
por consiguiente = therefore, consequently
por desgracia = unfortunately
por las buenas = "the easy way"
por las malas = "the hard way"
por fin = at last
por lo tanto = therefore
por lo visto = apparently
por todas partes = "(happening) everywhere", "all over the place"
por doquier = everywhere, every which way
por si acaso = just in case
por otro lado = on the other hand
And a few others but these are probably ones you'll see a lot - also for times of the day, when things are happening you use por - like por la mañana is "in the morning"
You might see something like mañana por la mañana "tomorrow morning" or mañana por la noche "tomorrow night" - por with a time of day means it's happening then. And it's almost always mañana, tarde or noche for "morning", "afternoon/evening", and "night"
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The other uses of por are a little less intuitive sometimes:
"through" - por el pasillo is "through the hallway", or por la ciudad is "through the city"
"by" / "around" - this is based on approximation but in directions it's used with estar, like está por ahí "it's over there", or está por allá "it's around over that way"...... or just saying like está por la biblioteca can be used sometimes to be like "it's around the library"
substitution - por is used like replacement or exchanging for "instead of"; like hacer algo por alguien can be "to do something for someone" in the sense of "so they don't have to" or "in someone's stead"; it gets translated as "to do something for someone" but it's not benefit it's instead of
with substitution you also see it for refunds and bartering and transactions in general
exchange - very similar to substitution, you'd see this for currency like un café por un dólar "a/one coffee for a dollar"; or if bartering something like tres manzanas por tres naranjas "three apples for three oranges"
"per" - just like substitution, this is a kind of exchange - but like por hora is "per hour", or por kilómetro is "per kilometer"
multiplication - por is translated as "times" or "multiplied by" in mathematics; you'll see tres por cinco as 3 x 5. In fact, por as "by" is so common in math that people abbreviate por as X...... so for example; x k? is por qué? in abbreviations [in math the common words are más "plus" (dos más dos is 2+2), menos "minus" (dos menos dos is 2-2), por "by/times" (dos por dos is 2x2), and then entre is "divided by" (dos entre dos is 2÷2) but literally "between"... but you can see dividir por/en/entre in general, it can depend on the country]
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There are times when you can see one or the other though. And they are different:
¿por qué? = why? el porqué = the reason, the reason why, "the why", motive
¿para qué? = for what purpose?, to what end?
Using por qué as "why" is much simpler and a general question, but para qué is a specific question like "what do they hope to achieve" is the feeling behind it
Both get translated as "why"
Next is votar
votar por (alguien) = to vote for someone, to vote in favor of someone
votar para (algo) = to vote for something
This is usually more cut and dried, but votar por tends to be used specifically with candidates
votar para normally comes with nouns or with verbs, but not people
In other words votar por quién "vote for who?" vs. votar para qué "vote for what?"
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Others are a little weirder like para siempre is "forever" and that's the one you see the most
You can see por siempre in poetry/lyrics and it's like "in perpetuity" or "everlasting", it just comes out very fancy"
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The other that's a little confusing is with directions; para can mean "up to", while por can mean "going through"
We were taught things like para el parque is "going in the direction of the park" or "going up to the park"... while por el parque means "through the park" like crossing through it or going past it
para in directions can sometimes be used like hacia "toward", while por is an intention to go through or "cross"
As a dark academic who has searched long and hard for a subculture of dark academia to wear this summer, something that matches the summer atmosphere, I am going to coin a new subculture of dark academia.
I present: Explorer Academia.
Just heard somebody say that comparison is the theif of joy and I just snapped back to my senses.
What I yearn for
I want to k n o w. I want to understand literature references, I want to lay on grass in the summer and recognize constellations, I want to read books from all around the world, I want to know how history affects our everyday life, I want to learn how to play the piano, I wanto to learn diffrent poems written by diffrent authors and be able to recite them by heart, I want to learn diffrent languages. I want education to be accessible. I want to fall in love with every single day.
Bro I just finished the one piece live action, and I am floored with how good it was like??? Koby being a main side charecter??? The small details and the scenery?? How the crew's relationship is being portrayed?? The casting?? Amazing. The amount of times the show had got me verbally hyped up got me wondering if imma get a noise complaint. I can not wait for the next season to come out.
Maybe I should have tried screaming instead...
Sometimes, I wonder if anyone will hear the words I speak towards the wall. Then again, can I really expect anyone to when I know no one will answer? Maybe I'm hoping for a spontaneous thought, an unexpected action that will lead me to a different room that's not filled with silence.
That line is from Solitaire??
Emphasis on cannibalism