I have a question concerning the answer to Chapter 6, Exercise 3, number 5. This exercise has one filling in the blanks. For number five, the answer given was "Tia espera el bu(accent on u)s". Why isn't this instead ---Tia espera para/por el bus. Why doesn't one use para or por before el bus. Esperar is to hope or wait. I didn't see a "for" in esperar.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Henk
Question on Beginner's Book, Chapter 6, Exercise 3

haroelant
May 8, 2008

nohablo
May 8, 2008
Hola otra vez. *Esperar* can mean "to wait for"; it does not require por or para.
I might mention a rather useful book that I bought not long ago. It's called _Using Spanish: A Guide to Contemporary Usage_ (2nd edition) by Ronald E. Batchelor and Christopher J. Pountain. It may be more advanced and detailed than you need right now, but among the things it has are listings of verbs that take prepositions in English but not in Spanish, and verbs that take prepositions in Spanish but not in English. Esperar is listed among those that usually do not require a preposition in Spanish.