Por: Through, Along, Per | Spanish (Latin America) Grammar

Another big role of por is describing movement through space and, by extension, rates and approximate locations. If you think of por as a kind of "wandering through" preposition, several of its uses start to feel connected.

Movement through a place

When you walk, drive, or travel through or along some space, the space takes por:

Caminamos por el parque toda la tarde.

We walked through the park all afternoon.

El tren pasa por muchos pueblos pequeños.

The train passes through a lot of small towns.

Entró por la puerta trasera.

He came in through the back door.

English sometimes uses "through," sometimes "along," sometimes "by way of." Spanish happily uses por for all of them.

Traveling around a region

By a natural extension, por covers the idea of "moving around" a region — visiting various parts of it rather than heading to a single destination.

Viajé por Europa el verano pasado.

I traveled around Europe last summer.

Estuvieron tres semanas de viaje por Centroamérica.

They spent three weeks traveling around Central America.

Contrast this with viajar a Europa, which would just mean "travel to Europe" — a one-way trip toward a destination, not the wandering-around sense.

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If the emphasis is "where I went" (a destination), use a. If the emphasis is "where I was moving around," use por.

Approximate location: "somewhere around here"

Por is also how Spanish expresses rough, imprecise location. If you know a place is somewhere in a general area but can't pinpoint it, por is your friend.

Mi primo vive por aquí.

My cousin lives around here (somewhere in this area).

Hay una farmacia por la esquina.

There's a pharmacy around the corner.

Compare vive aquí ("lives here," specific) with vive por aquí ("lives somewhere around here," vague).

Per: rates and frequencies

When you want to say "per hour," "per day," "per person," or "per cent," Spanish uses por. This is probably the closest Spanish por ever gets to a direct English translation.

Spanish	English
dos veces por día	twice per day
cien kilómetros por hora	a hundred kilometers per hour
veinte dólares por persona	twenty dollars per person
el diez por ciento	ten percent

Tomo la medicina tres veces por día.

I take the medicine three times a day.

El coche iba a ciento veinte por hora.

The car was going a hundred and twenty per hour.

Note: Spanish also allows al día, a la semana, etc., with a instead of por. Both tres veces por día and tres veces al día are correct; al día is slightly more common in everyday Latin American speech.

Duration of time

Por can indicate how long an action lasted, though in Latin American Spanish you'll very often hear no preposition at all for durations.

Estudié español por tres años.

I studied Spanish for three years.

Vivimos en Quito tres años.

We lived in Quito for three years.

Both are fine. Por makes the duration explicit; omitting it is more colloquial and is actually the preferred style in many Latin American countries.

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For past durations, native Latin American speakers very often drop the preposition entirely: Estudié español tres años. If you use por you'll never be wrong, but don't think you're obligated to use it.

Approximate time

Just as por means "around here" for places, it also means "around then" for times:

Llegarán por la noche.

They'll arrive in the evening (sometime at night).

Nos vemos por la mañana.

We'll see each other in the morning.

"Por" in common expressions

Many fixed expressions rely on this wandering / approximate sense of por:

Expression	Meaning
por aquí	around here, this way
por allí	over there, that way
por todas partes	everywhere
por fin	at last, finally
por ahora	for now
por cierto	by the way

¡Por fin llegaste!

You finally got here!

Next up: the third big cluster of por meanings — exchange, behalf, and passive agent. Or jump ahead to the full por vs para comparison.