What a word requires
What needs to go with this word, and in what form?
Meaning
Some words require a partner in a particular form, not just any word that makes sense. Knowing the pattern helps you connect a person, a thing, or another action to that word. Languages may use word endings, small linking words, or particular verb forms; some have no word endings for these links. Unlike Words that go together, What a word requires concerns the form of the connection, not just a usual choice of words.
How to spot it
Choose a word and check what can go with it, whether its partners can be left out, and which forms are accepted.
In your native language
English verbs, adjectives, and nouns can call for a particular preposition or a partner in a certain form. A following action may need to plus a verb or an -ing form, depending on the word. Some partners can be left out when the meaning is clear, but their form is not freely chosen when they appear.
I often listen to the radio.
Listen uses to to introduce what is heard.
I'm afraid of dogs.
Afraid uses of to introduce what causes the fear.
I enjoy cooking.
An action after enjoy takes the -ing form, not to plus a verb.
In your learning language
Spanish verbs and adjectives can require a particular preposition or a particular form of the following verb. Learn patterns such as depender de and ayudar a plus an infinitive, the form ending in -ar, -er, or -ir. After querer, an action by someone else normally uses que plus the subjunctive (subjuntivo), a verb form that here presents the action as wanted rather than as a fact.
Todo depende de la hora.
Everything depends on the time.
¿Me ayudas a llevar estas bolsas?
Will you help me carry these bags?
A links ayudar to the following action.
Quiero que vengas a cenar.
I want you to come over for dinner.
Vengas is in the subjunctive because the visit is wanted, not stated as a fact.
Learners whose language marks these links with noun endings may choose a Spanish preposition by its general meaning rather than by the word's required pattern. Learners whose language uses the same verb forms for facts and wishes may say *Quiero que vienes instead of Quiero que vengas.