The Spanish Sentence — The Personal a

The Spanish Sentence — The Personal a

Another important difference between the English and the Spanish sentence construction is the Spanish usage of the personal a to introduce a direct object noun referring to a definite person or persons.

María lleva a los niños a la escuela.
Maria is taking (is carrying) the children to school.

Since the direct object noun the children is referring to definite persons, it is necessary to introduce it by the preposition a. If niños (or any other direct object noun) is not referring to a definite person or persons but rather to children in general, the construction would be:

María lleva niños a la escuela.
Maria takes children to school.

If the direct object noun is not referring to persons at all, then there is no a used:

María lleva muchos libros.
Maria is taking (is carrying) a lot of books.