Basic Spanish Pronouns
- Personal pronouns
in Spanish are used almost the same way as their English equivalents.
However, the main difference is that in Spanish they do not need to
be expressed since the verb itself will identify the subject. This happens
in English with the third person singular of the present tense (to think->
thinks), where the -s shows us that we're dealing with a he, she or
it, although in English the pronoun is never omitted with the exception
of the imperative ("Sit down!", not "You, sit down!"),
unless we want to emphasize on the person being addressed with the command.
In Spanish, a pronoun is only needed when refering to a third person
(singular or plural) for proper identification purposes since it can
be a "she", a "he" or even a formal second person
singular. In the plural, the verb ending could be referring to a "they"
(masculine or feminine) or to "ustedes", a form of the second
person plural used by everyone in all the Hispanic countries, except
in Spain, where "vosotros" is preferred.
- There is also
another second person singular ("vos") used in some Latin
American countries (especially the ones in the South Cone [Argentina,
Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay], although in some Central American countries
it is also used [Costa Rica, for example]). The conjugation for the
"vos" in the present indicative differs from the standard
second person singular (tú) in that the stress for the pronunciation
lies on the last syllable, and not in the penultimate syllable: tú
sabes -> vos sabés
(you/you/formal 'you' singular)
(you all: masculine/feminine)
quiero estudiar or Quiero
want to study
quieres comer or Quieres
want to eat
quiere correr or Quiere
wants to run
quieren hablar or Quieren
want to talk
Notice how in Spanish
the verb ending identifies the subject, except when using a third person,
in which case we have several possibilities. In those cases you will find
that either the subject is identified through the use of the personal
pronoun or name, or it has been identified in a previous sentence.