Spanish verb recordar: to remind
To say that something or someone reminds you of something or someone, Spanish uses the verb "recordar" but not quite in the same way "to remind of" is used in English.
Have a look at these examples:
As in English, the subject of the sentence is whatever/whoever "reminds" (este hombre, la escena), so the verb recordar must agree with that subject. The indirect object pronoun (me) indicates who the action of "remembering" affects, the same way as in the English sentence (it reminds me..., it reminds them..., it reminds her...)
The main difference between the English and Spanish structures is the preposition used: "of" in English, "a" in Spanish.
It would be incorrect to use the preposition "de" in Spanish:
Los niños, jugando en el parque, nos recordaban de nuestra infancia.
The boys, playing in the park, reminded us of our childhood.
Los niños, jugando en el parque, nos recordaban a nuestra infancia.
The boys, playing in the park, reminded us of our childhood.
The cases mentioned above using the preposition "a" are all to do with "finding some kind of similarity between two things or two people". This is when we use the preposition a.
However, there are cases when it still means "to remind of ..." but here the idea is that "something is brought to mind". See these two contrasting examples:
If what you really mean is that something "brought an idea to your mind" as opposed to just two things being simiar, the "a" is dropped, as you can see in the first example above.
When we mean "something reminds me that ..." we omit the preposition "a" and use "que":
When we mean "something reminds me of what...", using "lo que" for "what", it can take the preposition "a" or not, depending of what we want to convey, for example:
We can summarise it by saying:
Use "recordar a" for "to remind of..." (= similar things/people)
Use "recordar" for "to remind of..." ( = idea brought to your mind)
Use "recordar que" for "to remind that..."
Use "recordar (a) lo que" for "to remind of what..."
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