4.11 Subject pronouns
In Spanish, pronouns indicate number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine or feminine).
Singular Pronouns
| Person | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | Yo | I |
| 2nd person | Tú | You |
| 3rd person | Él | He/it |
| Ella | She/it | |
| Usted | You (formal) |
Plural Pronouns
| Person | Spanish | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | Nosotros | We |
| 2nd person | Vosotros | You (informal, Spain) |
| 3rd person | Ellos | They (masc.) |
| Ellas | They (fem.) | |
| Ustedes | You (informal) |
Important Notes
- In Spanish, yo (I) is not capitalized, except at the beginning of a sentence.
- Tú is informal, whereas usted is formal (see Chapter 1). Ustedes is also the plural form of usted but in this case, it is neither formal nor informal.
- In Spanish, not only people but also things have gender. That is to say, things are either masculine or feminine.
- If there is a mix of masculine and feminine people or objects, Spanish always uses the masculine plural. A group of ten women and one man would use the subject pronoun ellos.
- If you’re wondering if there’s a gender-neutral form in Spanish, there is but it’s not official. Activists of Latin American descent who live in the United States, have adopted the letter x to denote neutrality: for example, Latinx. In Latin America, some are using an -e ending instead: tímide (shy), bonite (pretty). Of course, there is a great deal of debate around these new forms and their uses, but we must remember that language evolves and changes with the times.
This section includes content derived from Introduction to French (2nd ed.), originally released under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Liberté, originally released under CC BY-NC-SA, and Tex’s French Grammar, originally released under CC BY 3.0.
