Subjektpronomen

Spanish has a pronoun for every person, as English does, but it uses them far less. The verb ending already tells you who is acting: hablo can only mean "I speak", hablamos only "we speak". So a Spaniard introducing herself says Soy Lucía, soy de Bilbao, with no "I" anywhere. The other surprise is that Spain uses four words for "you".

Four ways to say "you" in Spain

Tú is for friends, family, children, colleagues your age and, in Spain today, most people under retirement age you meet socially. Usted is for distance and respect: an older stranger, a doctor, an official at the town hall. Spain uses tú very readily, so much so that a waiter in a Madrid bar will often say ¿Qué te pongo? to a customer of any age; much of Latin America, Colombia for example, uses usted more widely, even between friends.

In the plural, Spain distinguishes vosotros (a group of friends: ¿Vosotros venís a la playa?) from ustedes (a group you address formally). In Latin America and the Canary Islands ustedes covers both, and vosotros is not used in everyday speech. This course follows the usage of Spain, so you will practise both.

Usted and ustedes look like "you" but take the third-person verb, because they began as a polite phrase meaning "your grace": Usted habla muy bien, Ustedes son de Londres, ¿verdad?

One more "you" to recognise: in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and much of Central America the everyday informal singular is vos, with its own verb forms: ¿Vos sos de acá? - "Are you from round here?", vos tenés, vos hablás. It is fully standard there. This course practises tú, but you will hear vos in every film from Buenos Aires.

Gender in the plural

Nosotras, vosotras, ellas are for groups made up only of women. A group with even one man in it takes the masculine form: Ana, Carmen and Luis are ellos.

When to say the pronoun anyway

Leaving the pronoun out is the normal, neutral choice. Putting it in adds weight, the way stressing "I" does in English:

• contrast: Yo soy de Sevilla, pero él es de Cádiz. - I'm from Sevilla, but he's from Cádiz.
• clearing up ambiguity: es could be he, she, it or you (usted), so Ella es médica settles it.
• standing alone: ¿Quién quiere café? - Yo.

English speakers tend to say yo in every sentence: Yo me llamo Tom. Yo soy inglés. Yo vivo en Valencia. It is grammatical, but it sounds insistent, as if you were correcting someone. Drop it unless you mean it. Spanish also has no word for "it" as a subject: "It's cold" is Hace frío, "It's late" is Es tarde.