echar de menos
verbCEFR B1
What does “echar de menos” mean in English?
to miss
to miss (a person, place, or thing that is absent); takes personal a before human objects; peninsular Spanish (LatAm: extrañar)
Example sentences
Echo mucho de menos a mis amigos de la universidad desde que me mudé a otra ciudad hace dos años.
I really miss my university friends since I moved to another city two years ago.
¿Echas de menos tu ciudad natal, o te has adaptado bien a la vida aquí?
Do you miss your home city, or have you settled in well to life here?
Cuando vivía en el extranjero, lo que más echaba de menos era la comida casera de mi madre.
When I lived abroad, what I missed most was my mother's home cooking.
How to use it
Echar de menos means 'to miss (someone or something)' and is the standard peninsular Spanish expression for this feeling. It is a transitive verb phrase: the thing or person missed is the direct object. When the object is a person or personalised entity, the personal a is obligatory: 'echo de menos a mi familia', never '*echo de menos mi familia'. The Latin American equivalent is extrañar, which follows the same transitive structure: 'extraño a mi familia'. Both are B1-level items and worth knowing if you communicate across dialects.
Common mistake
The personal a is obligatory when the object of echar de menos is a person: 'echo de menos a mi hermano', not '*echo de menos mi hermano'. In Latin America, extrañar is the default verb: 'extraño a mi familia'. Both are correct in their respective dialect regions.