How to Teach Por vs Para

"What’s impressed me most is the nuance and complexity Flint helps me create. When something doesn’t quite work, I can adjust or rebuild an activity with ease. Nothing is lost—only refined."

Patty Gómez, Upper School Spanish Teacher

Why this matters

Students learn that por and para both mean "for", so many of them write para every time. "Voy a estar en Valencia para tres semanas" and "gracias para" look right to them, and an answer key marks the sentence wrong without asking which job the word was doing. The teacher has to wait for the chapter test to find out who still writes para for every "for".

Por vs para: the main uses

Por marks the route through a place (paseaban por el centro de la calle), how long something lasts (estaré aquí por tres meses), a cause (cerrado por vacaciones), the means (se lo dije por teléfono) and an exchange or price (lo adquirió por muy poco dinero) (RAE). Para marks a destination (voy para mi casa), a deadline (lo tendré preparado para el martes), a purpose (salí para despejarme) and a recipient (lo compré para ella), according to the same RAE page.

The University of Kansas's Acceso Spanish grammar pages warn that translating "for" word for word from English is "not a helpful strategy", and sum up the difference: para looks ahead to a goal, and por looks back to a source or cause (University of Kansas).

In the Flint activity, each student writes a message in Spanish to a host family about a trip and a gift, and Sparky puts the message in a document and asks what job each por and para is doing. Unlike a worksheet, Sparky points to the student's own sentences and lets the student fix them.

Sparky gets Hannah to fix her own por and para

Hannah ends up fixing three of her own sentences and explaining the difference between trabajo por mi tía and trabajo para mi tía. Every student gets the same activity, and Sparky's replies depend on the message and answers each student sends.

Sparky works from Hannah's own letterSparky sends Hannah back to a sentence she already wroteA right answer gets a harder sentence

Hannah

Interest: An exchange trip to ValenciaStarting point: Uses para for everything that sounds like "for"

Hannah

hola familia! me llamo hannah. llego el 3 de junio y voy a estar en valencia para tres semanas. voy para valencia para practicar mi español y para ver la playa. tengo un regalo para ustedes, es una camiseta de mi equipo de futbol. pague 20 dolares para la camiseta. muchas gracias para recibirme en su casa!

Sparky

¡Muy bien, Hannah! Let me put your message into a document so we can work through it together. Start with this sentence: "voy a estar en valencia para tres semanas." What job is para doing here?

Hannah

duration? its how long im staying there

Sparky

Good thinking! But here's a hint: duration (time spent doing something) is actually a job for por, not para. Look at another sentence in your message where you used para, "para practicar mi español." What job is para doing there?

Hannah

para practicar is purpose, like in order to. ok so its voy a estar en valencia por tres semanas

Understanding check

Exactly! Your letter is updated with por tres semanas. Now, a challenge! What's the difference in meaning between these two sentences? "Trabajo por mi tía." "Trabajo para mi tía."

Hannah

trabajo para mi tia is like she's my boss, i work at her job. trabajo por mi tia is like i work because of her?? or for her sake

Sparky

Letter updated! Your letter is looking great now, Hannah.

Fixed her own por and para, then told trabajo por and para apart

Between the tía question and the last version of the letter, Sparky asked about "pague 20 dolares para la camiseta" and "gracias para" the same way, and Hannah fixed both. Hannah is an example student, and Sparky's replies are shortened.

What Flint did for Hannah

Sparky put Hannah's message into a document with every para in bold, and updated the document each time she fixed a sentence.
When Hannah called "para tres semanas" duration, Sparky sent her back to her own "para practicar mi español" to compare the two jobs.
After Hannah fixed the sentence herself, Sparky asked what "trabajo por mi tía" and "trabajo para mi tía" each mean.

A teacher can't do this by hand for 30 students, and Sparky does it in every student's chat.

The activity page shows who still writes para for every "for"

While the class works, Needs attention shows the teacher which student is stuck and on which message. After three or more students submit, activity analytics lists what the class did well, where students went wrong, and a follow-up to practice next.

Flint's activity page for the por vs para activity. Needs attention shows that one student still has para in every sentence of the letter, including gracias para. Activity analytics says most students used para correctly for the gift's recipient and for purpose, and 19 students told apart trabajo por mi tía and trabajo para mi tía. 9 students used para for how long they stay. The follow-up suggests writing two sentences about the trip with the same verb and por or para, such as lo hice por ti and lo hice para ti. The Sessions table lists three students: two submitted and one still in progress. — Example activity page
After a Spanish class writes to its host families
The school and students are made up for this page.

Set up the activity for free

Open the por vs para activity in Flint's public library, select Use activity to copy it into a free Flint account, and assign it to a class. The activity's guidelines tell Sparky to make the document from each student's message, so there is no setting to turn on. The activity's primary language is English with Spanish as a secondary language, so Sparky explains in English and writes the example sentences in Spanish. Change the language settings if you want Sparky to explain in Spanish.

For more world language activities, see Flint for world language.

Start the activity for free