Maybe you think that understanding personal pronouns is one of the easiest things in any language, which, compared to other subjects like direct objects and subjunctive, is true.
However, there are many mistakes Spanish students make with these pronouns, whether because there are many subject pronouns you don’t have the opportunity to use frequently, like ustedes, or because you think we don’t use them at all.
Let’s study these pronouns thoroughly and clear out all the doubts surrounding them.
What are personal pronouns?
They are the pronouns that indicate who is the person or thing doing the action, therefore conjugations will depend completely on them; that is why they are so important to learn well.
Pronouns are divided into two groups: singular pronouns and plural pronouns. Here they are:
It seems a little obvious, but it is necessary to note that singulars refer to a single person or thing, therefore you cannot use any singular pronoun when you are referring to more than one person or object.
Read below about the particularities that make these pronouns different from English.
Two types of singular you
In Spanish we have two types of you: tú and usted. The first one is informal and it is used with friends or people we have a close relationship with. Usted is formal and it is used with older people or with people we have some kind of social distance like a boss or a taxi driver (more on that here). Both pronouns have different conjugations, so it is necessary to keep them separate, that is, if you start talking using tú, you cannot switch to usted in the same phrase or speech and vice versa. Believe it or not, they’re different.
We have a third type of singular you: vos. This one is used in some regions of each Latin American country. For example: Zulia, in Venezuela; Antioquia and Cali in Colombia; Tabasco and Chiapas in Mexico. The use of it is called voseo, and the only country that uses it as the main form of you is Argentina, in fact, Argentinians are famous for it. This pronoun has its own conjugation and its own objective pronouns, but since it is only used in a few regions, we will not consider it here (although I will write you in the future about this interesting little word).
No it
As you can see above, in the list of our pronouns there is no it to replace objects, ideas or animals. The reason for this apparent absence is that in Spanish all nouns are masculine or feminine, for which we have the pronouns él and ella.
However, it is not correct to use él and ella to replace things. When it is your subject, in Spanish we say nothing, we just conjugate the verb, like this:
Es muy interesante.
It is very interesting.
No entendimos la película. Era muy confusa.
We didn’t understand the film. It was very confusing.
The use of nosotras
Nosotras is the feminine way to say we. If I am a girl and I am with other girls, in Spanish I say nosotras.
That is a pronoun that men never need to use because as long as they are in a group, even if the group is mostly women, the pronoun that the whole group should use is nosotros, because in Spanish the masculine plural encompasses mixed groups.
What about vosotros?
Spain is the only country who uses vosotros for the second plural person. In Spain ustedes is considered to be a little formal while vosotros is informal. However, I recommend the use of ustedes as it is used by most Spanish speakers.
Is it true that in Spanish you do not need to use subject pronouns?
This is partially true.
It’s true that many times we don’t need them because conjugations are very specific, but that doesn’t mean we don’t use them at all. For example, when we are telling a story, it’s normal to start by saying yo, tú, él, or whatever pronoun you need. When the subject is already clear, we don’t have to repeat the pronoun.
Take a look to the following example, the pronouns you don't need appear in parenthesis.
Yo no conocía a ese cliente, entonces (yo) lo llamé para averiguar qué (él) quería. Él me dijo que (él) necesitaba cambiar su contraseña así que (yo) le sugerí que lo haga en persona.
I didn’t know that client, so I called him to find out what he wanted. He told me he needed to make a password change so I suggested he do it in person.
With él, ella, usted and ellos, ellas, ustedes it is especially necessary to start our phrases using the pronoun because these groups share conjugation, so if you say something like sabe, who does? Ella, él, usted? So it is better to say: Ella sabe (or él sabe, usted sabe, depending on the subject)
This seems obvious but, is it?
Many students get confused with the plural pronouns they should use, I hope this is not your case but if it is this is what you should remember:
The plural of yo is nosotros/ nosotras.
The plural of tú / usted is ustedes.
The plural of él is ellos.
The plural of ella is ellas.
If you want to practice, you can watch my video where you will find a small quiz, or if you want, go to the following link and do the exercises.