Spanish Regional Grammar: voseo (vos tenés) and ustedes

Spanish grammar changes by region in three main ways: vos for tú, ustedes for every plural you, and which past tense covers today. None of them is slang, and all are correct where they are used:

• Tú tienes razón. / Vos tenés razón. - You're right.
• Hoy he comido tarde. / Hoy comí tarde. - I ate late today.

Regional grammar at a glance

The whole picture. Spain's habit is in the solid blue box, the Latin American one in the dashed pink box.

Vos is not all of Latin America: most of Mexico, Peru and the Caribbean say tú.

Voseo: vos instead of tú

In Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, vos is the everyday informal you. It is common across Central America too, and heard in parts of Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile.

123

1. 1vos
2. 2usted
3. 3ustedes

In Buenos Aires: vos to a friend (2), usted to an older stranger (3), ustedes to a group (4), friends or not.

The present tense: drop the -r of the infinitive, add -s, and stress the last vowel.

Two things the table shows if you look twice. The stem does not change: tenés, not "tienés"; podés, not "puedés". And ser is the one big irregular: vos sos.

• ¿Vos sabés dónde está? - Do you know where it is?

Only the subject and the verb move. The object and the possessive stay as with tú; after a preposition, it is vos:

• Te quiero. - I love you. (as with tú)
• Es tu casa. - It's your house. (as with tú)
• Esto es para vos. - This is for you. (tú: para ti)

Voseo commands

The vos command is the infinitive minus its -r, with the stress on the last vowel. That makes most of the irregular tú commands regular:

• ¡Vení acá! - Come here!
• Decime la verdad. - Tell me the truth.

A pronoun joins the end as usual, and the accent then falls away because the stress stays put: decí plus me is decime. The exception is ir: the vos command is andá, from andar.

Ustedes for everyone

Latin America has no vosotros. Ustedes is the plural you for everyone, friends and strangers alike, always with the third-person plural verb:

The Canary Islands and parts of western Andalusia say ustedes to friends too. Popular speech in western Andalusia even pairs it with the vosotros verb (ustedes tenéis); the standard everywhere is ustedes tienen. If you learn Latin American Spanish you can leave vosotros out of your own speech, but you still need to recognise it: Spanish films, books and songs are full of it.

• ¿Qué queréis comer? - What do you (all) want to eat? (Spain, friends)
• ¿Qué quieren comer? - What do you (all) want to eat? (Latin America)

Today's past: he comido or comí?

For something that happened today, most of Spain uses the perfect. Most of Latin America, the Canary Islands and north-west Spain use the preterite:

Both are correct Spanish. Latin America still uses the perfect for a whole life up to now: Nunca he estado en España. - I have never been to Spain. That sentence works on both sides of the Atlantic, though Argentina also says nunca estuve. The full rules are on the present perfect.

Leísmo: le for lo

In central and northern Spain, many speakers use le, not lo, for "him" as a direct object. The Real Academia accepts this for a male person, so both are correct:

• A Juan lo vi ayer. - I saw Juan yesterday. (everywhere)
• A Juan le vi ayer. - I saw Juan yesterday. (Spain, accepted)

It does not accept le for a woman or for a thing:

The mirror image, laísmo, is la for an indirect object to a woman: "la dije la verdad" for le dije la verdad (I told her the truth). It is common in Madrid, and not accepted.

Dequeísmo and queísmo

Dequeísmo adds a de that does not belong before que; queísmo drops one that does. Both are heard everywhere and both count as errors. The test: swap the que clause for eso. If eso needs de, so does que.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Pick your variety, and learn its you and its today's past first.
2. Do the sort and spot-the-error drills below.
3. Then Spain vs Latin America vocabulary for the words that change.