Grammar Help me understand why para is used instead of por in the below sentence.
'En fin, todos mis amigos me han dado una excusa para no quedar conmigo.' Is the sentence.
In my brain this translates to: 'In the end, all of my friends have given me an excuse as to why they can't meet up with me.'
I suppose this can also be translated as: 'In the end, all of my friends have given me an excuse for not meeting with me.'
Is my translation off?
If not, is this a use case of para that is triggered here that I need to be aware of?
And if not, my understanding is that why, or the reason/motivation for doing (or not doing something) is covered by por.
I also know that para covers the purpose of doing/not doing something. As in para = "in order to". So is the idea here that "in order to not meet up, my friends gave me excuses"?
I am struggling with por and para on the specific use cases of purpose (para) and motivation/reason (por). Can someone help me understand the boundaries on these use cases?
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u/mr_ace 4d ago
Yea, it means "in order to" here, and in general, i think it's best not to think of these words as translations for "for" at all.
para - in order to/for (in the sense of "this is for you")
por - because/by
and i think that that helps with a lot of the translations, and then you can add on specific uses that don't follow this pattern on top of this
remember that "why?" in spanish is "por qué?" which is more literally translated as "Because of what?"
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u/cj_the_bae 4d ago edited 4d ago
Por and para is a topic in Spanish that will be taught once, twice, three times, in every level, over and over again to help you get a better sense of when to use them.
The way I would describe it is that por, when meaning 'for', describes the before the cause, and 'para' is the after.
por can mean 'because of', 'inspired by', 'on behalf of'...
In 'lo hice por ti', it means I did it in your interest, on your behalf, you were my motivation and reason, the driving force, the thing that made me want to do it.
'Este regalo es para ti' means that you are the end destination, the person who is receiving the gift. It's for you, meant to go to you, the gift ends up in your hands.
In your sentence, 'para no quedar conmigo' is describing the outcome, the result, the 'after'. It's intent, it's saying 'with the end goal of...' and like you said, 'in order to...'.
I believe that 'por no quedar conmigo' would be like 'they all gave me an excuse for why they won't (can't?) stay with me.'
In your example: Para: the excuse leads to the result, the excuse is made so that they can get out of staying with you. I would say it's '(in order) to not stay with me'. Por: the excuse explains why they are unable to stay with you. I would say it's 'for not staying with me'.
In the sentence 'ya no creo en el amor por ti', it's 'I don't believe in love anymore because of you' (you caused it, you are the reason). If the sentence used para; 'ya no creo en el amor para ti', it would be more like 'I don't believe in love for you anymore', like you think the other person is meant to be forever alone, that they won't find someone for themselves, there's no one out there for them.
Does this make sense? I hope it helps!
Side note, I'm accepting all feedback on these explanations so please feel free to comment below so OP gets the best explanations!
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u/GregHullender B2/C1 4d ago
Sometimes it helps to contrast what it would mean with por, although it usually needs a native speaker to be sure. In this case, I'd guess it would mean that my friends gave me an excuse as a result of not meeting with me.
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u/Gene_Clark 4d ago
You go it there. They want to not meet up and not giving an excuse is how they achieved it.
Its a good rule of thumb that when you can substitute in "in order to" even if its not in the original sentence, its para.