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01-018 Personal Pronouns

In this video, we talk about the personal pronouns in Spanish. If you’re not sure, personal pronouns are nouns that take the place of people I, you, he, she, we, they. In Spanish they are yo, , él, ella, usted, nosotros, nosotras, *vosotros, *vosotras, ellos, ellas, ustedes.

This lesson is an important building block on Spanish grammar so you might want to watch it more than once.

New video:

Buy the worksheet that goes along with the new video here!

Old video:

*Note*
I focus more on Latin American Spanish and in these videos. Therefore, I will not be covering the vosotros form. If there is a lot of demand for it, I might reconsider. Basically, in Spain, people use the vosotros form, which means “You all” (when talking to a group of people you know). Ustedes is used for a group of people you don’t necessarily know. In Latin America, any time you want to say “You all”, Ustedes is used.

Hope it helped! Feel free to leave comments and questions below.

Vocabulario:

  • yo – I/me
  • – You (informal/familiar)
  • él – he/him
  • ella – she/her
  • usted – You (formal)
  • nosotros – We (males or males & females)
  • nosotras – We (females)
  • *vosotros – You all (males or males & females)
  • *vosotras – You all (females)
  • ellos – they (males or males & females))
  • ellas – they (females)
  • ustedes – You all
*only used in Spain
**Also in the new video, I mention “vos” which is used in some places in Central and South America. It normally replaces “tú” in usage in those places.

31 Responses

  1. Señor Jordán:

    It is very important to learn the pronombre vosotros. It is true that only Spanin uses it most of the time but, we read books from Spain and that pronoun has to be understand my macho muchacho. I don’t think it can be left out. Ask a Hispanic and you will find out.
    Very nice videos.

  2. Gracias por tu comentario.
    Sure vosotros is useful. However, when you teach a language to someone from scratch, you don’t want to teach them many things that are going to confuse them. Since I am going for standard Latin American Spanish, my students will be learning yo, tú, él, ella, usted, nosotros, nosotras, ellos, ellas, ustedes.

    Vosotros/Vosotras (Spain) and vos (usado en vez del tuteo en partes de Latinoamérica) will all be omitted so as not to confuse them. Now, later on as they continue their Spanish education, it isn’t to say that they can’t pick up vosotros/vosotras and even vos.

    I NEVER learned vosotros in school. But I understood it when I had to read it. And I think it is easily picked up when a student is interested in Spanish.

    When Hispanics from Central and South America speak to a Spaniard, do they use ‘vosotros’ or do they use ‘ustedes’. I would guess they use ‘ustedes’ out of habit. Likewise, my students could use ‘ustedes’ and be fine.

  3. Oh yes, it would be just fine I think. I am from Mexico and we at school learned the vosotros form evonthough we did not use it. I do have friends from Spain and I use usted or tú when I talk to them and they use vosotros when they talk back to us and we do just fine. You are the teacher and you can teach what makes sense to you. I guess I just write back to you when I see something that sounds weired. I may be wrong too.
    Anyway, felicidades. Me gustan mucho sus videos.

  4. I learned the vosotros form by immersion in Argentina (my first exposure to the language) but am leaving out vos for now. They’ll probably learn vos when they hyphenate everyone’s name with “che” (ala Che Jason, como estais?). Dunno if that is spelled right – I learned all my Spanish “on the street” so I’m learning grammar along with my kids. I don’t always know WHY something is correct – just that is sounds wrong. We are really enjoying your videos – thanks so much!

  5. Kathy,
    Thanks for your comment. I’m jealous that you were in Argentina! I hope to go one day. But, if you learned there, please allow me to clarify something that confuses people learning Spanish.

    In Argentina they use ‘vos‘ to substitute for the ‘tú’. It is basically the ‘tú’ form but is a little different in the present tense and the present subjunctive. ( http://sofiabohmer.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/vos-vs-tu-right-or-wrong-coming-soon/ )

    Vosotros/vosotras is ‘tú + tú’ in Spain. It’s a plural ‘you’ for people you know or for kids. Ustedes is used for ‘you’ in groups more formally.
    In Central and South America, we generally use ustedes for all cases of ‘you’ in the plural.

    Hope that made sense!

  6. Hola Sr. Jordán
    I was wondering, can you say como se llama ustedes if your asking more than 1 person that you dont know?

  7. Trueman,
    Because you want to ask: How do you (all) call yourselves… we need the ‘ustedes’ form of the verb (llamar) which we know is: llaman

    So:
    ¿cómo se llaman (ustedes)? 😉

    -Sr. J

  8. Dear Jordan,

    First, I really appreciate that you uploaded your videos on the internet. I also study spanish by myself; practicing my lessons in combination with watching your videos is a perfect way for me to learn the language. Thank you very much!

    Concerning the vosotros: I like that you note that you will not use the ‘vosotros’ form, so we students can keep this in mind. In my opinion, when a person is studying a particular language, one should learn the most original form of a language. In this case, is that not the spanish from Spain? ( I can be wrong, I just started with spanish). Anyway, it is not a very big problem. I am moving to Spain, so it is important for me to know what are the differences between words from Latin America and from Spain. (I hope that in your videos there are not too many Latin American words 🙂 )

    Gracias again y Adios!
    Johnny

  9. Sr. Jordan, I was wondering if you could do a videos in the future that dealt with Possessive Pronouns. Thanks!

  10. Hi Sr. Jordan!

    It is me again. Johnny. Now I am writing this message from Spain. Unfortunately I did not have much time to learn Spanish. Ojala I will learn more soon.

    I would like to tell you that there are two cities in the south of Spain, where they also use the ‘ustedes’ form instead of the ‘vosotros’ form. Interesting, isn’t it? I forgot the names of the cities.

    I noticed that you uploaded new videos on the website. I will check them out! Thanks!

    Kind regards,
    Johnny

  11. I think it’s great you are putting all of this on a website. I have been teaching for 18 yrs and I have lived in Spain. I completely agree w/ your stance on vosotros. We teach it the same way here. Students are aware about it but they know it is only used in ONE country of the 21 where Spanish is spoken. I tell my students we do not focus on it because they would only use it if they are IN Spain and if they are talking to a group of people they KNOW WELL. So if those two things align than that person is probably pretty good at Spanish and the vosotros is easy to start using at that point. It’s not that it is hard to learn it but it is more managable for students to focus on only 5 forms. Also, since our country borders Mexico and many students visit there, it makes sense to teach what they would use. If you are reading literatue, than the students are at a level at which they should be able to understand the vosotros and what it means.

  12. do u have any tips to learn nouns yo, tu, that? I just don’t get it. but learning another language is useful.

  13. Sr. Jordan- I’m with you 100% re: “vosotros.” I tell my students, “It would be like teaching you British spelling. I want you to be aware that it’s out there, but you may never have occasion to use it.” I lived in Costa Rica for several years and have always used “vos” at home. (It’s convenient, because you don’t have to worry about stem-changing verbs: vos tenés, vos volvés, vos querés.)
    Gracias, Sr. Jordan, for your videos–happily, you and I have a similar approach to Spanish grammar, but my elementary kids would rather learn subject pronouns from Señor Jordan, because you’re on a screen.

  14. OMG I just realized that Senor Jordan is aqtually an extremely skilled ventriloquist and he voices lucas

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