Spanish 1.4. Subject Personal Pronouns

In this lesson, we study the subject personal pronouns in Spanish.

Subject personal pronouns in Spanish serve the same function as their English counterparts. They point out who carries out the action described by the verb.

yo	I	1st person singular
tú	you (informal)	2nd person singular
usted	you (formal)	2nd person singular
él/ella	he/she/it	3rd person singular
nosotros/nosotras	we	1st person plural
vosotros/vosotras	you (informal)	2nd person plural
ustedes	you (formal)	2nd person plural
ellos/ellas	they	3rd person plural

Dropping the Subject Pronoun

More often than not, the subject personal pronoun is dropped because the verb endings can be sufficient to refer to the subject, as you will learn in Lesson 5 of this level.

Informal “Tú” vs. Formal “Usted”

There are two forms of singular “you” in Spanish. The first is the informal “tú” and is used with familiar people (e.g., child, relative, friend, peer, etc.). The second is the formal “usted” which is used with older people and with people we are not familiar with or to show respect.

In writing, you can abbreviate “usted” as “Ud.” and “ustedes” as “Uds.” where the abbreviation forms are always capitalized.

The accent on the “u” in “tú” is to distinguish it from the possessive pronoun “tu,” meaning “your,” and does not affect the pronunciation. Similarly, the accent is used to distinguish “él,” meaning “he” or “it,” from the definite article “el,” meaning “the.”

In some Spanish-speaking countries like Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, the informal “tú” is replaced with “vos” and has different verb conjugations that you will find in Level VI, Lesson 9.

“Nosotros” & “Vosotros”

The masculine pronouns “nosotros” and “vosotros” have the feminine forms “nosotras” and “vosotras,” respectively. The feminine forms are used for groups that consist exclusively of feminine-gender members. Even if one masculine-gender member of that group exists, we must use “nosotros” and “vosotros.” The same gender rules apply to “ellos” and “ellas,” both meaning “they.”

In Latin America, “vosotros” is not used; instead, “ustedes” is used for both the formal and informal plural versions of “you.” Throughout the book, we keep the “vosotros” conjugation for reference only. However, feel free to ignore it if you want to focus exclusively on Latin American Spanish, as this book is intended.

The Equivalent of “it” in Spanish

There is no direct equivalent to the English subject pronoun “it.” Since all nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine, we use “él” or “ella” to refer to an object depending on whether it is masculine or feminine. There is also the neuter personal pronoun “ello,” often translated as “it,” which refers to a statement or a situation. This is usually used in writing but seldom in spoken Spanish. For example, “Ello no significa mucho” (It does not mean much). In spoken Spanish, you would use the masculine demonstrative pronoun “esto,” meaning “this,” e.g., “Esto no significa mucho.” More details on demonstrative pronouns are discussed in Level II, Lesson 6.

Next: Present Tense I: Regular Verbs

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