Personal subject pronouns such as “Yo” > “I”, “Tú” > “You”, “él” > “He”,”ella” > “She”, “Ello/Eso” > “It”, “Nosotros” > “We”, “Ustedes” > “You” and “Ellos” > “They” are vital to identify the “who” and “what” the subject is in a sentence. Without them, sentences would lead to misunderstandings.
No need of explicit pronouns
Regarding one of the differences between Spanish and English, the former does not need a pronoun. As a matter of fact, Spanish usually uses verb conjugation to express the subject of a sentence. Take for example “baila y canta alegremente en la fiesta” which means “She/He/It dances and sings happily at the party”. As you can see, the verbs “baila y canta” can refer to a woman, a man or an animal who sings and it is noticed in the conjugation of the verb.
Gender in nouns and pronouns
Another remarkable feature is that in Spanish most pronouns have gender masculine or feminine, while in English the only gendered pronouns are “he” and “she”. For instance, “We are friends.” can be interpreted as “Nosotros somos amigos.” or else “Nosotras somos amigas.” It is clearly seen that -os (masculine) and -as (feminine) are marks of gender respectively.
“Tú” and “Usted”
Last but not least, in Spanish there are two forms of “You” which means “tú” and “usted”. The first one is informal, “Tú eres colombiano” and the second is more formal, “Usted es colombiano”. We can also use it when we ask: “¿Cómo estás?” which means “How are you? in the informal style in comparison to “¿Cómo está?” in the formal way.
Let’s practice:
In the following sentences, we can have a look at the Spanish pronouns:
Spanish/English
- “I” (Yo) escribo un mensaje. I write a message.
- “You” (Tú) escribes un mensaje / (Usted) escribe un mensaje. You write a message.
- “He” (Él) escribe un mensaje. He writes a message.
- “She” (Ella) escribe un mensaje. She writes a message.
- “We” (Nosotros (as)) escribimos un mensaje. We write a message.
- “You” (Ustedes) escriben. You write a message.
- “They” (Ellos) escriben un mensaje. They write a message.
Now that you know more about pronouns in Spanish, at Bright Lingua you will be able to use them in more communicative contexts accompanied by the best qualified staff.