Spanish voseo in predominantly tuteo-speaking countries

[@nicolasmendoza181]

Great video! I am bolivian, from the Valleys region in the highlands, middle class, and i can tell you that indeed we use vos + tuteo verbal form only with close people, and that the voseo verbal form is perceived as linked with the more indigenous working classes, while the tuteo forms are seen as part of the middle and upper classes way of speaking, this group being seen as more tied with the Spaniards. But some times some voseo forms slip in our day to day speak, specially in the imperative form, like comé! or bajá!. Also, the voseo verbal forms used in the lower classes are commonly used with tu.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for contributing and clarifying this.

[@AlejandroTamariz-ql9hf]

This creates another parallel with Ecuador. The voseo verb form is almost only heard in the command form in the Ecuadorian highlands as the Bolivian here states. It is also associated with a more rural and indigenous mode of speech, such that you can easily hear indigenous Andean Ecuadoreans say “Vení”, but middle and upper class would usually say “Ven.”

[@melianagarcia240]

Hey! A Maracaibo/Zulia girl here. In my opinion we do use vos, tú and usted but it depends on the person who's talking and relationship we have with the ones we're talking to. In MY case, I use "vos" with close relatives, friends or maybe some people I just met and I feel comfortable because they're using "vos" too. With people I don't know or don't feel comfortable talking to (maybe relatives I talk to once every year or maybe a waiter, or at the supermarket, on the street, just random people) I use "tú" or "usted" depending on my perception of their age or how they behave. If I see someone around 20,30 or less I would use "tú" because they're around my age (25), if they look like 50, 60 or more I would say "usted" ... If I'm not sure if they're 30,40.... I try to not use any pronoun and wait until I hear how they call me haha... If they say "usted" I will answer with "usted", if they use "tú" I will answer with "tú". BUT THAT'S ME. My brother, he uses "vos" with anyone and treats everybody as if they know each other for years 😂😂 and so do my best friend and other people I know... I hope this helps a bit.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights!

[@someonerandom704]

I genuinely can't wait until you post your voseo reverencial video. With your mentioned first-hand accounts of Ecuadorean voseo (or lack thereof), I'm really curious about how that affects the data for other countries. I also wonder if there's a lot of socioeconomic disparities in its usage because multiple authors are reporting conflicting results.

[@tenminutespanish]

These are very interesting issues you bring up. 1) The data for other countries is definitely inaccurate. Different authors use different methodologies, and their hopes and expectations color their findings. How inaccurate? Dunno. 2) Just because voseo exists in a particular region, doesn't mean YOU would hear it if you went there. In lots of places voseo is only used in certain types of relationships, and a conversation between a local and a foreigner is often not one in which voseo is appropriate. Sometimes voseo is only used between people of the same socioeconomic stratum and racial group, so even native Spanish speakers from the same country don't hear it if they're not part of the group that uses it. So while the maps are interesting, they don't really tell the story.

[@monkeydreams]

thanks! I love these videos about the voseo! 🥰

[@tenminutespanish]

I'm so happy you've enjoyed them.

[@TheYosuppeeps]

My grandmother from Ecuador speaks with the vos + tuteo verbs described here and that's what I hear in Cotopaxi, when I visit La Maná, even though I'm from Quevedo in Los Rios and tuteo is used there exclusively. I wouldn't even have noticed or thought about it, Spanish is a pro-drop language after all and the tuteo verbs are all that is needed to have a conversation. I only started realizing there was a different 2nd person pronoun aside from usted and tu a couple years ago.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for sharing these insights! It makes me nostalgic to hear the place names. I've been to all of these places.

[@dereknoble6796]

And some colombians switching back and forth in the same conversation and even at times in the same sentence was always something that confused me greatly. Tried looking into it and never found a definitive answer. Nice knowing that at least I wasn’t the only one perplexed by them

[@LotoRojoCarmesi]

As a colombian I found it as a curious yet normal conversation jajaja

[@celioski3698]

Venezuelan here, from Barquisimeto originally so in the midst of the dialectal whirlpool of western Venezuela; I believe the vos in Zulia is mostly a register thing; you see, the Zulian identity is very strong and thus in a way the "vos" is a community marker because even if it's not really that hard, it's also not easy to perfectly imítate the Zulian accent with all the grammar changes and particular words they use, even if you master the basic conjugational differences. That's why there's the phrase about the "Independent Republic of Zulia"

[@richardhill486]

Hands down one of the best channels on KZbin. Anyone know of a similar channel but for French?

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@Roberto-REME]

Outstanding video and very well researched. Well done!!

[@alfredosutherland1]

En realidad en Venezuela tenemos dos tipos de voseo, el zuliano y el andino-larense-falconiano todos utilizados al occidente del país. El zuliano conserva más elementos del castellano antiguo en la conjugación. Voseo zuliano: vos sois Voseo andino-falconiano-larense: vos sos

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias por esta contribución!

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

Great video! I know this is out of scope, but by any chance are there any corners of Spain or the Canaries where there is still voseo? Just wondering if a trace there still lingers.

[@tenminutespanish]

Great question. To the best of my knowledge, there is no dialectical voseo remaining on the other side of the Atlantic. But there is still some occasional use of reverential voseo. I'll make a video on reverential voseo sometime in the next few months.

[@felipegonzalez1934]

Vos is used in Medellin and Cali but, unlike Argentinians, they can switch to tu when speaking with people that do not use vos, like the majority of Colombians.

[@dajo1976]

Nice video, impressive how different uses of voseo. I was born and raised in Maracaibo, capital of Zulia state in Venezuela. We uses voseo as you explained, to talk to everybody, we do use "usted" as the rest of the country. In some parts of Falcon state, the peninsula on the north-east, they use vos but with a twist on the verb conjugation, we say "vos sabeis" and they say "vos sabés". Questions as "Where are you from?" - De donde sois vos? or vos de donde sois? in Zuliano, differs a little from Falconians De donde sos vos?. Trujillans do use vos, for families/friends, but "usted" for the rest. Zulia is a proud estate, rich in culture with music, food, art, literature, where the reverential vos is use in the most respectful way.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution!

[@87advil]

Hi Daniel! Do you have any insight on the use of voseo in Lara state? I'm pretty sure I've heard some friends from Barquisimeto use the "vos sabés" type, but with the imperative the same as the Zulian type, so it's not perfectly in line with the Andean type of voseo that is described in this video. If you have any thoughts on this I'd appreciate it! It's a little mystery I've been trying to figure out for a bit. Someone online told me I must just be mishearing the Zulian type of voseo but I don't think I am...

[@dereknoble6796]

Really interesting and thorough video as always. Was awesome seeing each country broken down the way you did! I did just want to add a bit from my experience. One of my good friends is from Quito, and some time back I noticed that he used vos but vary sparingly. He always used tuteo conjugations, but if you asked how he was doing he would respond “bien y vos?”. I asked him about it and he said that he’s not really sure why they do it, just because, but that they switch and it’s mostly just when asking that sort of “and you?” question. To the best of my memory he uses tuteo in all other contexts. Always seemed very interesting

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you, and thanks for this contribution. Very interesting.

[@diegolaresbarboza]

Te te felicito por tu trabajo con el voseo en el Zulia, precisamente como lo indicas Maracaibo su eje principal por ser capital del Estado Zulia. Ineludiblemente el voseo en el Zulia es una riqueza cultural y puede considerarse en un futuro como patrimonio inmaterial de la humanidad pues mantiene el castellano original. El voseo es uno de los elementos del regionalismo en el Zulia pues como bien lo indicaste en el vídeo fuimos la última provincia en unirse a Venezuela en la independencia después de la batalla naval de lago. Hoy en día muchos zulianos sentimos esa sensación de resistencia idiomática, geográfica, cultural y sociológica. Te felicito por tu contenido si logras enganchar con el público Zuliano podrías llegarle efectivamente a 5 millones de personas. Un abrazo.

[@tenminutespanish]

Muchísimas gracias por el comentario y por toda la información interesante acerca del Estado Zulia. Me alegro mucho de no haber explicado mal el voseo zuliano. Lamentablemente, no creo que mi humilde canal que está dedicado a enseñar español a estudiantes anglohablantes tenga mucho que ofrecer a hablantes nativos de español, como ustedes.

[@ericdanthon2]

Los maracabinos son "la pepa del queso"!

[@ratc441]

really interesting video! my grandparents are from bolivia and i always wondered why one uses vos why the other never does but turns out its because my grandmother is from a more upper class family with more direct ties to spain while my grandfather grew up in a more rural setting.

[@tenminutespanish]

Fascinating!

[@alfredosutherland1]

Felicitaciones, muy bien y exactamente explicado.

[@tenminutespanish]

Muchas gracias por tu amable comentario. Me alegra mucho saber que te haya gustado el video y que hayas encontrado la explicación correcta. Tu apoyo significa mucho para mí. Un saludo.

[@AndyInc1377]

I am from Quito, nearly 40 years old and we do use *vos* on a daily basis. Of course they would be with people that you are familiar with (besides family and friend circles, with work colleagues if you are closer to them) I really like the vos pronoun because it makes feel natural when speaking; my grandparents used that with us. And I used to address to one of my grandpas with the “usted” pronoun but he told me “Use tú with me, don’t be formal” I was 8 years old.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this insight!

[@markobrien3278]

I lived with a middle class ecuadorian family as an exchange student in 1975, when I was 20. There were six children in the family - three older than me, and three younger. They used the pronoun “vos” with each other and with me, exactly as you described of your experience in Riobamba - with the tuteo conjugation. I had Argentinian friends at my university in the US, so was familiar with voseo conjugation. I was totally surprised that they used “Vos” in Ecuador, and assumed it was a faddish thing, since they didn’t use the “ proper” (in my mind) voseo conjugation. I believe we all used “usted” with their mother, but my memory of that is more vague. I had no idea that “vos” in Latin America was an artifact of archaic Spanish from Spain. I also lived in Guatemala for a couple of months in 1976. I was in a remote province (Rabinal, Baja Verapaz) and the locals and I always used usted with each other. I lived in close proximity with two families and I don’t recall ever hearing them use “vos” there.

[@letsgetit7566]

perhaps you werent close enough with them? im from guatemala and i can tell you that we indeed us vos, all of us, but only with people we are very close with, otherwise we{ll use usted if we dont feel comfortable enough with the person. Thus why im suggesting maybe you werent able to get close enough with the people you interacted with enough for them to use vos.

[@Viclimay]

Very interesting topic. I am from Peru, born in Lima but my family comes from northern Peru between the Andes and the Amazon. I have never heard a Peruvian using Vos instead of Tu. I interacted with Peruvians of different origin and social status. I checked some references and you are right Voseo was reported in southern Peru in isolated areas in the highlands. It was also reported in the northern highlands of Peru. I have heard some folk music and read some literature with Voseo. I always thought it was a way to make rhymes in poetry :) . I think Voseo in Peru is in the brink of extinction :(

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution to the discussion. It's good to hear from a native of Peru about this. I have limited firsthand experience with Peruvian Spanish

[@videosladvd7823]

hello, i live in highlight or wersten bolivia since 7 years ago, and they all the class socioeconomic use it the same way, i mean they all use vos and tú, in the case of vos it is with the tuteo from for example vos tienes, vos haces, vos puedes. in the imperative the voseo is the same as in the east bolivian dialect , i mean: andá, traé, vení, hacé, comé. i think thats all, i hope it can be helpful

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution!

[@87advil]

The Venezuelans I know occasionally use vos verb forms but not, to my ears, what's described as the typical Zulian voseo (using vosotros forms). The people I've met are mostly from Barquisimeto (Lara State) and Caracas. It sounds like it could be Andean voseo. In the Spanish wikipedia page on voseo it lines up more with voseo tipo 3, not tipo 1. The use as an expression of solidarity among young men also lines up with my experience. That said, they say eg mirá as the imperative - not mire. And one source I've found says that both types of voseo are used in Lara, but that it's southern Lara, near the Andean region, that uses the Andean type - not where Barquisimeto is. So I'm still fairly confused about what's going on, but this video gave me a lot more to go on - some people online have told me I must be mishearing it, and you've reassured me I might not be totally making this up. The other comments on this video from Venezuelans have also been helpful. By the way, I'm pretty sure I've heard vos (whichever type it is) from both larenses and caraqueños, but I'm more certain of hearing it from larenses since that happens to be the people I've spent the most time with, in my relatively small sample size of Venezuelans.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting. Thanks for the contribution.

[@junovzla]

I am Venezuelan from the south-western regions of Caracas and I've lived in Valencia for ten years. My mom's family and my mom, all of whom lived their lives on diverse areas of Caracas, sometimes use voseo as a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing, when we're joking around and having a generally non-serious mood; the kind they use is the typical Maracaibero type. As for me, I sometimes use voseo in a similar context but I also sometimes use it more "seriously" with some very close friends; the kind of voseo that I use is sort of like a mix-up of Maracaibero and standard voseo, just kinda switching between different verbforms at random, sometimes even mixing vos with tuteo verb forms. In the present I don't have a lot of interaction with other Venezuelans from Caracas but I've never heard anyone who isn't my family use voseo.

[@87advil]

@@junovzla Thanks for your reply and additional info!

[@DonPaliPalacios]

Guayaquileño here. Voseo in coastal Ecuador is rare but definitely exists; I've heard it in the wild. It's associated with rurality, low educational level and low social status.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@DonPaliPalacios Thanks for this insight!

[@ofdrumsandchords]

Good, I live near Spain, and intent to go to Cuba someday, so I don't have to worry about vos. I play with Colombians, but our rehearsals are in french. I'll ask them if they use it in Columbia.

[@cabarete2003]

Great stuff

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks!

[@mx_moi1964]

Mexican Voseo is used from the central part of the state of Chiapas to the border. Most commonly heard in Villaflores, rural Tuxtla, and the towns of San Cristobal de las Casas, Comitán de Dominguez Chiapas

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution!

[@albertold5524]

Hi, I’m from Quito, Ecuador. The use of voseo in Quito is common across all backgrounds, but it’s something used almost exclusively among friends and between some family members (usually those your age or younger). But even in these contexts I think we tend to alternate its use with that of “tú”. I believe that in any other contexts it’d be considered pretty rude, even offensive. It’s rare to see but people can deliberately address this way to strangers when they want to start a fight with them. Regarding its conjugations, we use voseo + the “tú” conjugations. I guess it can be hard to tell when someone is using tuteo or this type of voseo since in Spanish we usually drop all the pronouns when speaking or writing. As for other parts of the country you just made me realise that I never paid attention to whether they use voseo or not!!! I have been living my entire life under the assumption that they did. But now I come to think of it, I believe I never heard my friends from the Coast using it.

[@tenminutespanish]

I find this so interesting. I'm intrigued by the idea that it never occurred to you that costeños might not use vos, while it never occurred to me that serranos did use vos. How interesting!

[@albertold5524]

@@tenminutespanish yeah, it's really intriguing. Like I said, it probably has to do with the fact that our voseo uses the same conjugations of tuteo. Since it's natural not to use pronouns in a normal conversation in Spanish, this makes it virtually impossible to tell when someone is using this type of voseo unless the person happens to explicitly say "vos" or "tú". Plus, in Quito we freely use "vos" and "tú" in the same conversation with the same close friend or family member. So, I'm guessing this is why I overlooked it whenever I had a casual conversation with my friends from other parts of the country.

[@albertold5524]

@@tenminutespanish Oh, I forgot to tell you. I love the content of your channel. I'm always looking forward to your new uploads!

[@tenminutespanish]

@@albertold5524 Thank you!

[@ericdanthon2]

Very interesting report that I couldn't respond a year earlier but I work with Salvador and I now have friends who immigrated to here from Zulia. My two best friends are from El Salvador and Zulia. Gabriel and Luis from Maracaibo and Cabimas use VOS exclusively. Just like Argentinans. I only hear the present tense and command form. They use it with ALL native Spanish speakers. They don't change. Wilber is from Salvador like many at my job. He never uses vos. He says that he uses usted with All the Salvadorans at work. He only uses Usted just like all other Salvadorans. Another from Salvador told me that his way of speaking is not correct. Like it was somehow inferior. One buddy from Guatemala says you can't use tu with men. It has a social feminine gesture to it. A new guy from Nicaragua has used Tu with me from day one. He never uses vos. I will ask him about vos in Nicaragua tomorrow.

[@loopernow]

Hi there, my comment is off-topic to this particular video--I was wondering which letters in Spanish have the exact same pronunciation as in English? Because to my mind I think it may only be about 5 letters. I think it's these: c, f, m, p, s. What do you think? Maybe this could even be the topic of a brief video. I was unaware of how differently Spanish and English are pronounced until I started learning through your channel, etc. Cheers!

[@tenminutespanish]

I have sort of made a video on this. It's titled "Study plan for learning Spanish pronunciation". C and p are not exactly like English, because their hard pronunciation is accompanied by an aspiration in English, but not Spanish. And the soft version of c is "th" in Spain. M is about the same, but can be different in some contexts. The only letter I can think of right now that is exactly the same between the two languages is f.

[@loopernow]

@@tenminutespanish Awesome. Queuing that video. Thanks! :)

[@YeshuaIsTheTruth]

This info is great and so meticulously put together, but it would be better without the robot voice.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@YeshuaIsTheTruth Um... that's my real voice. This comment makes me sad.

[@LotoRojoCarmesi]

Im a colombian spanish speaker, with a rolo accent (Bogotá, capital). The thing you said about men in Cali shouldn't use tu with other men applies the same for Bogotá and for the same reason. We tend to use "usté" among male friends, but now and then you can se a male that doesen't like that form. We dont use vos at all here, yet I think "voseo" is also part of our beautiful culture and identity as Colombians.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this insight.

[@juanestebanblanco2309]

Otra cosa que cabe resaltar es el uso en la parte norte de Norte de Santander. En Ocaña y sus alrededores el voseo se mantiene entre familias más tradicionales y se usa a la par del usted.

[@9lunix]

Que bien que ya se está viendo eso poco, esos manes tienen tremenda masculinidad frágil

[@apejoves]

Sobre el voseo en Perú hay escasos estudios o tesis, y es difícil encontrar información. Personalmente nunca he visto/escuchado a algún peruano que use el voseo (pronominal, que sería el caso). Probablemente haya sido siempre marginal y solo persista en personas mayores en zonas andinas. Ojalá alguien con información nos pueda ilustrar. Saludos.

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias por esta contribución.

[@videosladvd7823]

supestamente hay en Arequipa , tienes qe preguntar a arequipeños si lo han escuchado o usan

[@280682pato]

In Paraguay 100% Voseo

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@hey5150]

Desafortunadamente pero no hay voseo en panamá 😭😭😭🥺🥺 pero ellos lo entienden

[@cu9424]

The voseo is present in America because in the European conquest of America, those who administered everything discovered were the Andalusians and they speak very differently from those who live in Madrid. It is true that some countries in America still use it when they speak, in Mexico we use the word "tú" more, we use tuteamos.

[@BobbyBermuda1986]

In English, we say, in the *Americas when referring to all the New World countries. If you say America, it's short for United States of America.