Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Spanish - Lesson 1 - Personal Pronouns

The first thing that most language courses teach are the personal pronouns, so here we'll do the same, an add some examples:

Yo
I

You (singular, informal)
Vos
You (singular, informal/formal)
Usted
You (singular, formal)
Él
He
Ella
She
Nosotros
We
Vosotros
You (plural)
Ustedes
You (plural)
Ellos
They (masculine)
Ellas
They (feminine)
Eso
It (masculine)
Esa
It (feminine)

Ok, it looks a bit complicated, so let's explain a few more things:

“Tú” is the most used singular form of you. It can be used only if the person is young or you know him/she well.
“Vos” is arcaic and formal in Spain. But in some places of Latin America (Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica) is the most common informal form of “you”.
“They” can be “Ellos” if it's talking about a group where there is at least one person(or thing) of masculine gender or “Ellas” if all the members of the group are feminine-gender.
And, yes, of course, that reminds me that in Spanish, everything has a gender, nothing is neutral, so the truth is, that “Eso” or “Esa” are not very good translations of “It” . Literally, they are mostly used to mean “That”.

Examples:

Yo juego fũtbol. (I play football)
Tú tienes frío (You are cold)
Ellas van al cine esta noche (They are going to the movies tonight)