Episode 004

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You're listening to the Café Cortado, the podcast where we answer your questions about the Spanish language. In this week's show we'll be hearing from Juliet in London who has a question which puzzles many learners of Spanish: just which word for "you" is the correct one?

Juliet is quite right: there are different words for "you" in Spanish. In English there's just the one - if I'm addressing my wife, my friend or my son I use the word "you"; and if I'm addressing my boss, or my mother-in-law, or indeed a random person in the street, I still use the word "you". If I'm speaking to a group of people, I also use the word "you". While this perhaps makes English easy, it makes life quite difficult for learners of other languages where there are different 'types' of "you"!

In the standard form of Spanish, there are two basic forms of "you" in the singular. If you're talking to one person who is a friend, a colleague, a family member, someone you know well, or someone younger than you, then you use the word tú. If you want to be more polite, for example if you're speaking to someone to whom you wish to be respectful then you can use the word usted. Without wishing to complicate things, there is another informal form used in certain parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, and in some parts of Central America, you may hear the word vos used instead of tú. We won't go into too much detail about vos: as a learner you'll be understood perfectly if you can use tú and usted in the correct situation!

So much for the singular forms. In Latin America, things are very straightforward in the plural. The word ustedes is used for "you" when you're talking to a group of people. However, in Spain, things are a little more complicated: there's another form which is used for informal situations. The word vosotros is used to speak directly to a group of friends. If you're speaking to a group of females you would use vosotras. For example, if you say "I'm leaving, what about you?", you'd say me voy, ¿y vosotros? (or ¿y vosotras? for a group of females). In Latin America this would simply be me voy, ¿y ustedes?

It's also important to mention that since Spanish has different forms of the verb for different people, you need to use the correct form of the verb corresponding to whichever "you" you're talking about. Remember that the pronouns tú, usted, vosotros, vosotras and ustedes - and indeed vos - are only used for emphasis or to make it clear who is being spoken about. Consider the following examples. Each of these sentences mean "do you want to dance with me?", but each refers to a different "you":

¿(tú) quieres bailar conmigo?
¿(usted) quiere bailar conmigo?
¿(vosotros) queréis bailar conmigo?
¿(vosotras) queréis bailar conmigo?
¿(ustedes) quieren bailar conmigo?

In each situation the pronoun is optional. Note the different verb forms which change, depending on which "you" is being spoken about.

This is probably all sounding a bit complicated, and I hope I've not put you off learning more Spanish, Juliet! You will become more used to all of these forms as you learn more Spanish. And if it helps, there are plenty of other languages with even more forms for "you": in Japanese or Malay you have to really think hard before you decide which word to choose! Thanks for sending in your question, Juliet!

That's all for this edition of the Café Cortado. Don't forget to visit the website at www.thecafecortado.com, and if you've not yet subscribed to our main Spanish language podcast, visit www.coffeebreakspanish.com. We'll be in touch with this week's contributor to deliver the three free guides for the Coffee Break Spanish series. If you'd like to earn your own free guides, or if you have a question about Spanish then listen to the numbers coming at the end of the show. Tune in again next time - ¡hasta pronto!