The question is asked "¿Estás de vacaciones? " and answered with " No. Estoy aquí por negocios." Why is "de" used in the first sentence? I understood "de" to mean "from or of".
Lesson 1.5 ¿Estás de vacaciones?

dc7970
January 8, 2009

nohablo
January 8, 2009
*Estar de vacaciones* is an idiom that means "to be on vacation." A similar idiom is *irse de vacaciones*, "to go on vacation." There are lots of expressions like this--in English as well as in Spanish--that one just has to learn rather than to try to translate word for word.