Subject Pronouns (Los pronombres sujetivos)

In language, there are three types of persons:

first person

second person

third person

These are also divided into singular and plural.

The subject pronouns that correspond to these persons in English are given in the chart below:

	Singular	Plural
1st person	I	We
2nd person	You	You all (Y’all)
3rd person	It, He, She, etc	It, They, etc

Spanish, like English, has these same subject pronouns, except that Spanish distinguishes between two types of “you.”

There is an informal “you” (tú), which is conjugated as the English “you” in the 2nd person position.

Then, there is a formal “you” (usted) that is conjugated in the 3rd person position.

The table below indicates how the chart would look for Spanish:

	Singular	Plural
1ª persona	Yo	Nosotros (as)
2ª persona	Tú	Vosotros (as)
3ª persona	Él, Ella, Usted (He, She, You)	Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes They(masc),They(fem),Y’all

The Vosotros form is primarily used in Spain. Thus, many Spanish classes in the United States tend to you the Ustedes from for the plural for both Tú and Usted. I will follow this approach with the rest of the lessons.

Uses of the Subject pronouns:

Unlike English, most of the subject pronouns are not usually used in Spanish. This is because most of them only have one conjugation per subject pronoun. Compare for example the following chart of the present tense of the verb “to talk” with the same verb in Spanish “hablar”:

I, You, We, They	Talk
He, She	Talks

Yo	Hablo	Nosotros (as)	Hablamos
Tú	Hablas
Él, Ella, Usted	Habla	Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes	Hablan

Notice: If a person were to say, “Hablo en español,” you immediately know who the subject of the sentence is, because there is only one possibility: Yo.

However, if someone were to say in English, “Talk in Spanish,” it is unclear who the subject is; it could be I, You, We or They.

This is why it is necessary to use the subject pronoun in English, but not as necessary in Spanish.

The subject pronoun is used, however, for clarification when using the third person in Spanish. This is evident by the three possibilities for subjects in Spanish: Él, Ella, Usted in the singular position. Therefore, when a person begins a conversation in Spanish and they are speaking about someone in the third person, it is necessary for them to use the subject pronoun at first.