No quiero tirar la basura en el parque.

I

Breakdown of No quiero tirar la basura en el parque.

• querer: to want
• en: in
• el parque: the park

Questions & Answers about No quiero tirar la basura en el parque.

Why is no placed before quiero instead of before tirar?

In Spanish, the negative word no almost always goes directly before the conjugated verb in the sentence.

• Here, the conjugated verb is quiero (from querer).
• Tirar is an infinitive (unconjugated), so no does not go directly before it.

So you get:

• No quiero tirar la basura en el parque.
  (no
  • quiero (conjugated) + tirar (infinitive))

You cannot say Quiero no tirar la basura en el parque in normal Spanish; it sounds very unnatural or overly philosophical in most contexts. The standard way to negate the whole idea "to throw the trash in the park" is to put no before quiero.

Does tirar here mean literally "to throw" or "to throw away"? Why use tirar for trash?