⇒ Verbs in Spanish change their endings to indicate the subject – i.e. the person who is doing the action

⇒ This means that it is not always necessary to use subject pronouns – ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, etc.

⇒ However, one significant difference between Spanish and English that needs to be understood before we can look in more detail at verbs is the various ways of saying ‘you’

⇒ Deciding how to address someone is more complicated in Spanish than in English

⇒ There are singular and plural forms depending on how many people you are talking to and there are also different forms depending on how formal or familiar you want to be, so in total there are four possibilities for translating the word ‘you’ in standard Spanish:

• When you are speaking to someone you know well, such as family or friends, you would use the familiar form, and when you are talking to a stranger or to someone with whom you want to maintain a certain level of formality, you would use the formal one.
• When you are using the familiar form of address, the word for ‘you’ when addressing one person is tú and if you are addressing more than one person you must use vosotros or vosotras.
• Vosotros is the used when addressing two or more people who are all masculine or when addressing two or more people when some are masculine and some are feminine.
• Vosotras is used when addressing two or more people who are all feminine

⇒ For example, if you were talking to your parents, you would use vosotros, as one is masculine and one is feminine, but if you were talking to your sisters, you would use vosotras

⇒ Since verb endings in Spanish are distinctive and unambiguous, the use of the pronouns tú and vosotros is not common

⇒ When you are talking to a stranger or to someone with whom you wish to be more formal, you must use usted, and when addressing two or more people, ustedes

• Usted is used with the same verb ending as ‘he’ and ‘she’, while ustedes is used with the same verb ending as ‘they’, so in order to avoid any ambiguity, it is sometimes necessary to include these with the verb.
• Usted is usually abbreviated in writing to Vd./Ud. and ustedes to Vds./Uds.

⇒ The tendency in Spain at the moment seems to be that the familiar forms (tú and vosotros) are being used more and more at the expense of Vd. and Vds. This is particularly true among young people.

• However, in case of doubt, the recommendation, especially among adults, is to use Vd.

⇒ We have already seen the various forms of the word ‘you’ in Spanish, so now we can look at the complete list of subject pronouns.

⇒ Traditionally pronouns and verbs are displayed in the three ‘persons’

• In the singular, ‘I’ is the ‘first person’, ‘you’ is the second person, and ‘he/she’ is the third person
• The first person plural is ‘we’, the second person plural is ‘you’ (remember that in English ‘you’ can be singular or plural) and the third person plural is ‘they’.

⇒ The subject pronouns in Spanish are as follows:

⇒ Note: The masculine plural forms ‘nosotros' and 'ellos' must be used when referring to two or more people (or objects) when some are masculine and some are feminine, as explained above with reference to vosotros.

⇒ Now you know the subject pronouns, why not dive straight into regular Spanish verbs here