Use of the Verb Conocer

The verb "saber" (to know) is used when we speak of knowing facts. There is another use of "to know", this is when we know someone (we are familiar with someone---or some place, etc.).

In this case we use the Spanish verb "conocer". The present indicative conjugation of conocer is shown below:

conocer (full conjugation)

When we use a noun that refers to a person as a direct object in Spanish, we have to include the preposition "a". In our sentences up to now, we have thought of "a" as meaning "to". In this particular case, we don't translate "a" as "to". It wouldn't make sense in English. The reason for including "a" goes back to a pattern in Latin, and we don't really want to spend time on trying to understand all of the details of the Latin pattern at this point. Just remember that when you use a direct object that refers to a human being you must put "a" in front of it.

Now, if we say, "I know the boy", we would have one other small detail that we must pay attention to. Remember that we have said in class that "a" plus "el" (the) gives us the contraction "al". Notice how this works in the following example.

Remember that this only happens with "a" plus "el", not with "a" plus "la", "los", or "las".