You've Probably Already Done This, But What Is The Difference Between "por" And "para"?

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"