Spanish voseo in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Eastern Bolivia, and Central America

[@jorgesuazo72]

It’s been a year since you posted this, but my input might still help you. I’m from Honduras, born and raised, have lived here my whole life. I have used vos my entire life, never using tú in any situation, and most people I’ve met are like me, however, there are some weird exception, of which I’ll mention three. Firstly, my mom, she uses tuteo exclusively with her parents. However, I think this might be because my grandmother was not a native spanish speaker, and when learning Spanish, probably only knew tuteo, so she probably used tuteo with my mom, making my mom used to that form with her parents. But like I said, she only does this with her parents. Another related yet different example is a friend of mine who uses tuteo, but only with his nuclear family. Father, mother, and brother all use tú with each other, yet they use voseo with literally everyone else. However this is a weird outlier because I don’t know of anyone that does this, to this day it still catches me off guard when my friend uses tú with them. The last example, is my driving instructor when I was in driving school. He used tuteo with me and other students, but I noticed that he used vos with his colleagues. What I can only assume from this is that he didn’t feel close enough to us to use vos but he didn’t feel it was a formal enough situation to merit an usted, so he used tú and a middle ground sort of neutral form. I’ve seen a few people here and there use tú in situations like that, but it’s super rare, to the point I only have a vague memory of it happening before my driver instructor. To expand on the more general idea, I’m actually surprised that voseo was seen as improper in Central America, because in my experience, if you use tú in school, you’d definitely be made fun. “¿Por qué hablás como mexicano?” and stuff like that would not be uncommon. Yet, I’m also not completely surprised because as you mentioned, most of the media and literature in our country used tú, despite the fact we use vos exclusively in our daily life. I remember being confused by this in my Spanish classes in school. Like, why are we learning like this if we don’t speak like this, so it’s cool to know the reason. I will say though, I feel like in recent year, I’ve sort of seen a surge of “vos” in TV, specially in ads. Whereas during my childhood basically all ads would use tuteo, now I’m seeing more and more ads use voseo, as a way to relate more to the customers, since it’s how we actually speak. Also, tv anchors and politicians are also using vos more and more frequently during interviews. I haven’t been to school for a few years now but I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that the books are using voseo nowadays. Hopefully one day we use voseo the same way Nicaragua does. I’ve always preferred it to tuteo, it just sounds more natural. And like you mentioned with Argentina, it does feel like a national pride thing, something that makes Honduran and Central American Spanish unique. I hope my insights were helpful even if they’re a little late, and thank you for a great video. May God bless you.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for these fascinating insights!

[@villatoroleonidas]

As a Salvadoran, I can agree that voseo is alive and well. Growing up, tuteo was used for education setting, however that’s changing. The use of voseo is part of our identity.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution to the discussion.

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

Soy argentino y mi cuñado es uruguayo, de Montevideo. A veces usa "ti" o "contigo" en lugar de "vos" o "con vos" en frases del tipo "¿Querés que lo haga sin ti?" o "Decime si querés que vaya contigo". Es bastante curioso, y siempre me burlo de mi hermana cuando se le pega y lo usa aunque no es uruguaya. Me contó, además, que se usa bastante con los niños el tuteo.

[@tenminutespanish]

Qué interesante! Gracias por contribuir!

[@ceffmm1031]

Una muestra más de que Uruguay no es ninguna 'provincia rebelde' que copie todo lo que haga Buenos Aires. Por lo que el llamado 'español rioplatense' debe ser replanteado completamente.

[@jpvuelma]

Pero el tuteo en Uruguay no es como en los otros países hispanos. En Uruguay dicen "tú tenés" y "tú sos" en vez de "tú tienes" y "tú eres". Acá en Rio Grande do Sul hacemos algo similar con nuestro portugués

[@ticholopeluche]

Sí, soy Uruguaya y creo q a veces decimos contigo en vez de con vos y el ti en vez de vos, aunque no estoy segura cuál forma es más común 🤔 También el tú lo usamos a veces pero con conjugación de vos como escribió el comentario de arriba ej: ¿Tú sos de acá? Aunque es más común utilizar "vos"

[@afatblft93]

my father is Nicaraguan, mother Dominican. we either use vos (strong b sound and always dropping the s unless in a slightly formal situation) or usted. never using tú. when i travel to Nicaragua, usted is used for only formal occurrence or with people you do not know. i dont recall ever hearing tú in Nicaragua. spot on, man.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks for this contribution to the discussion!

[@marcosadrianlinares3049]

Yeah, you are totally correct with the fact that "voseo" is part of the Argentinian identity and no one uses "tuteo" at all I don't know nowadays, but when I was in elementary school about 20 years ago, they never taught us how to conjugate verbs in voseo nor it showed up in school textbooks. No one else really noticed it, but I always found it to be weird and wrong. I don't know if this has changed in recent years. I really hope so! And as you pointed out, there's not really a formal agreement on how to conjugate verbs in the present subjunctive tense. I also always found this strange since Spanish is a language with many rules and where everything seems to be millimetrically controlled by the "Real Academia de la Lengua Española". Even if you look up information about "voseo" there, there's really not much written about it. Anyhow, I live in the Tucumán Province in Argentina where people tend to conjugate the present subjunctive tense as "quierás", "muerás" or "digás". And some even say "querás" or "murás". But there are also people who conjugate as if it was tuteo: "quieras", "mueras", "digas". The latter, I reckon, is the most common way to conjugate it in Buenos Aires and its surroundings. There's a really interesting case in Argentina that, as far as I'm aware, only happens in the province of Santiago del Estero. They use the vos pronoun, but always conjugate verbs in the tuteo way in all tenses. For example they say "vos cantas", "vos haces", "vos sales" instead of "vos cantás", "vos hacés" or "vos salís".

[@Roberto-REME]

Me interesa mucho el tema del uso de "voseo" vs. "tuteo." Es decir, por qué algunos países usan el voseo, mientras que la mayor parte de Latinos no lo usan y que tiene que ver España en todo esto. Pues me gustó mucho este video porque, a pesar de que el narrador da su opinión, también se nota qué hizo mucha investigación e indagó para llegar a formar un punto de vista. Eso me gusta ya que sigue el sistema científico: recopilar información, observación, formar hipótesis explicativa, analizar datos, interpretar datos y sacar conclusiones que sirvan como punto de partida para una nueva hipótesis, y finalmente publicar resultados. Muy buena producción de video y aprecio la información que compartís.

[@sergiojose2000]

El voseo también existe en otra lenguas romances . Recordá que latino no es sinónimo de hablar español, latinos también son los españoles, frances, pirtugueses, étc.

[@mikejohnson5727]

Actually in most Central American Countrys the use of "tuteo" is very awkward and artificial

[@murakyo79]

Regarding Paraguayan spanish. Most of my family is from Paraguay (The rural areas), although I'm argentinian. They speak using voseo including the present subjunctive, saying "vos cantás; lo que vos querás". When I visited the capital and urban zones the people sometimes would use tuteo when present subjunctive but even then, the voseo was used too.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this insight.

[@verm7148]

That’s incorrect. I’m Paraguayan. I live in the capital. We never use “tu”.

[@280682pato]

In Paraguay we don't use "Tu"...never!

[@murakyo79]

@@280682pato Sí eso dije, es más bien que conjugan el vos de la forma en que se hace con «tú». Vos cantas, vos regalas, en vez de decir vos cantás, vos regalás. Pero eso solo en zonas urbanas específicas, me pasó estando en Asunción pero no cuando estuve en Caacupé.

[@RaquelRI]

​@murakyo79 eso no es cierto, jamás conjugamos de esa forma los verbos 😂. Es vos cantás, vos regalás, vos comés. Andá saber donde estuviste, pero en zonas urbanas de Paraguay no

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

Más que un jonrón, this was a grand slam video. Gracias, hermano por tus videos fenomenales, I'm really glad you addressed the S-less Central American voseo aspects. Stay healthy, mil gracias y fuerte abrazo. Tuteo speaker (northern Mexico) here.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for your kind words. Comments like these keep me going.

[@mep6302]

9:50 I sometimes use voseo subjunctive even though most of the time I use tuteo subjunctive. I don't consider voseo subjunctive incorrect. I'd even say it is more correct because I'm addressing someone using vos not tu. But sometimes voseo subjunctive sounds weird like "dúrmas" instead of "duermas" (you sleep)

[@DanielDavis1973]

I find it fascinating that in most of tuteo Latin America "vos" has almost completely dropped out since the same areas also have dropped vosotros.

[@tenminutespanish]

I'm not sure I understand. Could you please explain in more detail what you're thinking? I'd love to understand you better.

[@DanielDavis1973]

@@tenminutespanish It was mostly just an observation that, at least in colloquial Spanish, the same areas that moved away from vos also moved away from vosotros which (If I remember correctly) is a back formation from vos and otros after vos shifted to the singular form. It's probably coincidental since both tuteo and voseo areas have both dropped vosotros. Spanish's 2nd person pronouns seem like they followed (unrelatedly) similar alterations and shifting to English's Thou/Ye/You

[@tenminutespanish]

@@DanielDavis1973 Ah, I see. Well, as you mentioned, vosotros was rejected in favor of ustedes everywhere Latin America, both places that use tú and places that use vos. So, I don't believe acceptance or rejection of vos has anything to do with rejection of vosotros.

[@YungMonki2K]

Honduran here. Lo que vos mencionás en el video es correcto, en el aspecto educativo se enseñaba con el "tuteo", pero con la llegada de la globalización nos empezamos a dar cuenta que es no era una manera "incorrecta" de hacer las cosas, sino nuestra identidad. Desde hace unos 10 años que el voseo ha sido aceptado y utlizado por el gobierno ,y los medios de comunicación, a pesar de que siempre se ha utilizado de manera informal. Ahora les puedo asegurar que se puede utilizar el voseo libremente sin importar el estrato social, claro está, dentro de un contexto informal, para contexto formales el usted es imperativo. Así que hermanos entuciastas por aprender el español con voseo, vos is the way to go if you're thinking to visit our beautiful country! P.S: This is the best chanel that exists in therms of learning spanish, without a doubt!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for your insights into Honduran voseo. And thank you for the kind words.

[@DaChanging1]

I watch a novela called the unbroken voice from Colombia and they only use vos and usted but use usted more than vos

[@josepablochew877]

The use of "voseo" in Guatemala is complicated. We do in fact use the "voseo" conjugation for the verbs ("tu sos", "tu hablás") but the use of "tu", "usted", and "vos" is situational. It obviously varies but a good rule of thumb is the following: "usted" - is a very formal and respectful language "vos" - denotes friendship and is slightly disrespectful. That is maybe the reason many men don't use "voseo" when speaking to women but is something that has changed specially with younger people "tu" - for closer relationships (family, partners, etc...) -> you can use all depending on the undertone of the conversation and place

[@gringoglot]

So interesting. When I lived in Quetzaltenango and Rheu I only ever heard usted and vos. This surprised me to hear that tu is used anywhere in Guatemala. 🤔

[@sergiojose2000]

@@gringoglot El tú es usado en Guatemala, pero es una minoría, la mayoría usa el vos y todos usan el usted.

[@murakyo79]

What a video. Good job.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@ropssalis4891]

super interesting video, useful and informative amazing work as always

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you, so much!

[@aaronramirez8355]

I'm paraguayan and "tú" is not used in any social class, i wasn't aware of the utilisation of "tú" in the elite social class in the past, it may have been replaced by "usted" which is used today as a sign of respect.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for this information.

[@aaronramirez8355]

@@tenminutespanish Relating to the paraguayan utilisation of voseo, we never say something like: "Quiero que vos cantés", we say:" Quiero que vos cantes".

[@tenminutespanish]

@@aaronramirez8355 Very interesting. Thank you!

[@Blue-jd8jf]

Washington DC and Los Angeles have the largest voseo speakers in the U.S. In Washington DC Salvadorans are the largest Latino group over all, and in Los Angeles, Salvadorans are the second largest Latino group

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting. Thank you for contributing this.

[@gtripmusic2906]

Costa Rican Spanish has a lot of similarities to Colombian Spanish so I'm not surprised by the frequent Usted uses

[@280682pato]

In Paraguay we use 100% voseo

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for sharing this.

[@thane_snipes]

Absolutely fantastic, as always. I've gathered that you're currently catching up on requests for pronunciation critique, but I was wondering how you announce the next round, so to say? I'm a native Dane learning European Spanish, and I would love your critique sometime. Cheers, and keep it up!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you! I'll post a video and a community post when I start round 2 of pronunciation critique.

[@thane_snipes]

@@tenminutespanish Excellent. I'm looking forward to it :)

[@someonerandom704]

Do you think that saying cantái instead of cantás correlates with final s aspiration?

[@tenminutespanish]

Nice observation. It seems likely.

[@albayzinHCHO]

your videos are really awesome. thank you. i know you don't have as much experience in spain but it would be cool to have you review some dialectal variation in spain (spain versions of lo, la, le object pronouns versus the latin american standard; and the regional "incorrect" leismo, loismo, laismo versions in north-central spain) or the dialects of andalucia (i.e. abertura vocalica and associated vowel harmony of eastern andalucia; and other unique features of southern spain spanish)

[@tenminutespanish]

This is a great suggestion. I have been to Spain a couple of times, and I studied the Spanish and literature of Spain many years ago, but most of my experience is with Latin American Spanish. Still, I should make some videos in the Spanish of Spain for those who are interested.

[@albayzinHCHO]

@@tenminutespanish another interesting topic is how the past is treated in different regions of the spanish-speaking world. in spain they use the perfect form for completed actions in the recent past (i.e. esta mañana me he caído), the simple form for actions in the distant past. most of latin america uses both forms just like english (the simple form for completed actions in the recent or distant past, and the perfect form for actions with relevance to the present). and then "southern cone" places like argentina don't use the perfect form as much or they'll use the simple form when they are making general statements about their life ("nunca he visto esa película" becomes "nunca vi esa película"). i've heard it could be galician influence(?) or portuguese(?).

[@mep6302]

I remember at school I learned how to conjugate verbs with all personal pronouns, including vos, tú, usted, ustedes and vosotros. However my little sister only learned the pronouns used in Argentina vos, usted and ustedes.

[@maralm3744]

What sources have you used to make these videos about voseo?

[@tenminutespanish]

Several published papers and theses.

[@rainbowripper]

Please do the video on voseo in Chile!! 🇨🇱

[@tenminutespanish]

Here is my previous video on voseo in Chile. It's not too bad. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoiqqod3hdqcfpo

[@penny5891]

Hi I’m from Paraguay and never heard anyone speaking tuteando, is someone hears you speaking with tu they assume that you’re not paraguayan. And we use rioplatense tuteo in the present subjunctive lime the one the argentinian said was more “elegant” but for us is just normal day to day speaking

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting! Thank you for this contribution!

[@joel-engel4021]

I'm Guatemalan and I "voseo" people who I regard as the closest. I would use "usted" as a form of respect, someone I approach without knowing him or her personally. But I do voseo people, whether they are man or women meaning I feel close to them. Interesting video by the way Ten Minute Spanish. ¡Saludos!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for your contribution to the discussion, and thank you for the kind words!

[@jonathangironhernandez1604]

In Chile is used also voseo, informal way, between Friends or family

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you. Yes, I have a whole video on Chilean voseo.

[@jamesmuller4886]

As a salvadorean living in the US I feel proud to use vos and almost never tu, if I talk to a person from a country that uses tu I switch to usted, because vos is not very understood in those places, some try to use vos but they can't realy give it the right tone so it comes out akward or it feels like they are trying too hard. My friends speak just like me , how ever there are some rhat have change to tu just to fit with the mexican or other nationalities that do use tu. But.... If they bringbup the tubin a conversation with us that dont use it they get laughed at or they get question of why are they using tu. Now for kids born in the US its adifferent story theybhavr switched to tú because of the big mexican , puerto rican influence.

[@rickyricardo69]

growing up as a first gen american, (parents are from el salvador) i was taught that vos is the most informal, then follwed by tu and then usted. my parents would yell at me if i spoke to them in voseo, so i spoke to them in tu. however i recently realized that tuteo has completely different conjugations! so i was using tu with voseo conjugation. the funny part is, my parents never ever bothered correcting me so now when i use tu (speaking to strangers or my parents) its really hard to remember the proper way to conjugate the words. also, my entire family living in the US as well as in el Salvador uses vos and usted (when addressing elder family members) with eachother. rarely do they ever use tuteo.

[@arislopes1924]

I would definitely say Voseo is very strong in Nicaragua and just how the video showed the quote”Nicaragüense cumplí con tu deber” notice the replacement of the word cumple with cumpli that’s the voseo adjustment. When speaking in voseo you need to change the way you pronounce certain things specially when expressing yourself or towards others. Another voseo adjustment would be replacing the word tienes with tenes u cant say “vos tienes que hacer” that just sounds wrong in voseo Spanish, that’s why it’s need to be replaced with vos tenes que hacer. At least in Nicaraguan vernacular Spanish you need to make this adjustments to not sound out of place.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution!

[@gringoglot]

Very interesting about the present subjunctive in Argentina. I spoke with some Argentines about why sometimes they said “digas” and other times “digás” and they actually denied that the latter existed. I insisted I had heard it but was beginning to doubt myself until watching this video 🙏

[@grahamneiman2731]

I was recently in hnduras and they use both tu and vos, both in terms of written and spoken. my guess is its prob around 75% voseo, but not exclusive (at least in districo central where I was)

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for the contribution!

[@tenminutespanish]

@@rashawndavis6648 Very interesting! Thank you for this contribution.

[@jamesrosemary2932]

My experience after living in Argentina for a few years is that when a native speaker uses tuteo to talk to other natives, he is seen as a "snob". Someone who pretends to be above others. This is not the case when a non-native uses it. The natives understand that this person does not know that "here we speak differently".

[@letsgetit7566]

why is guatemala light blue? i think i missed the color legend

[@tenminutespanish]

There is no color legend. The situation is too complex to represent with a well defined color legend. I made Guatemala light blue because it employs tuteo more than the other Central American countries, and combines tuteo and voseo.

[@letsgetit7566]

@@tenminutespanish oh i see thank you

[@lesly7754]

en el occidente Boliviano ,oeste de Bolviia igual se vosea no solo en el este o oriente el voseo es en todo el país

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias por el comentario. Hablo acerca del occidente boliviano en el siguiente video.

[@lesly7754]

@@tenminutespanish claro mi amigo pero no desinformes diciendo que no se vosea Porque igual se lo hacen aunque hay veces que es mezclado con el tu pero mayormente se vosea Donde no se conoce el tu es el oriente eso sí ahí no hay tal mezcla es voseo todo

[@tenminutespanish]

@@lesly7754 Con respeto, amigo, nunca dije que no se vosea en el occidente boliviano. Sólo dije que el voseo del occidente es un poco diferente, y por lo tanto lo trataría en otro video.

[@lesly7754]

@@tenminutespanish a bueno gracias por responder y esperare tu video sobre el voseo del occidente boliviano a veces mezclado con el tu , ya que el tu solo usan en oficinas o gente que se cree intelectual , pero ya en la calle, en vida social, en casa mayormente siempre se usa el vos

[@gringoglot]

Also interesting about the rural communities in Central America. I was in very rural parts of Guatemala where Spanish was not the native (or at least first) tongue of many people. I never knew if the way they were conjugating haber in voseo (habés) was “correct” because they committed many other more obvious grammatical mistakes. But it looks like there was an explanation for this one 👌🏻

[@joshadams8761]

Helpful video! I would not call Mexico exclusively tuteo. Wikipedia indicates, and my friend from Oaxaca confirms, that voseo is “widely used in the countryside of the state of Chiapas”.

[@tenminutespanish]

Indeed. You are 100% correct. You can see this in my map if you look closely, and I'll talk about it in my next video.

[@joshadams8761]

@@tenminutespanish Cool. While creating my iPhone app Conjugar, I found the Wikipedia article on voseo extremely helpful. I’m curious how accurate you find this article in light of the rigor of your research.

[@robertogalvez3865]

Dos terceras partes de los latinoamericanos usamos el voseo. Estamos hablando del 66% de la población. En Nicaragua en la escuela aprendemos el uso de tu y usted pero usamos vos para comunicarnos con gente conocida. Absolutamente nadie usa el tuteo a menos que sea un extranjero o un nica que ha vivido fuera del país y fue asimilado por un país tuteador como España por ejemplo. Tras haber vivido más de ocho años en Costa Rica considero que es el país donde el vos tiene más arraigo en Centroamérica. Hasta los anuncios usan el voseo. Y si, usan el Usted muy similar a Colombia. Guatemala y El Salvador pueden ser curiosos ya que he escuchado a personas mezclando tuteo y voseo a la vez. Nunca he escuchado a un hondureño usar tu.

[@letsgetit7566]

as a guatemalan i can comfirm that i indeed used tu with girls (with voseo verbs tho) and vos with guys, but i wouldnt say many guys didl, most guys used vos with girls, so lon gas they were close of course

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution.

[@oliver_merida]

I’m from Guatemala , a vos using country. The majority of native speakers use vos as the informal, friendly and urban pronoun. We only use “tú ” when we talk to a foreigner that use “tú “ as a main pronoun. The only place where this is different is in the capital city (Guatemala city). In the capital women use tú as the main pronoun but this is changing with the new generations and men use it for talking with women but never to other men. Use tú with another man is considered too feminine (In Guatemala gender roles are strongly rooted in culture) although in the rest of the country women and men use vos.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this very interesting contribution.

[@MacMyKitty]

Salvadorans use usted when addressing someone we just met or an older person or someone from the government, voseo even with parents, Salvadorians use Tuteo in the United States due to the taunting from Mexicans.

[@Dante_-cg3fq]

In Uruguay a lot of people use BO insted of VOS for some reason But it keep the same rule of voseo PD:It will be interesting to see the TA word in the many many formes used in Uruguay Something exclusive to Uruguay

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this contribution. Lots of varieties of Uruguayan Spanish are s-reducing. So "vos" is pronounced without the final [s]: [boh] or [bo]. But it's the same word. There are lots of dialects that do this elsewhere in Latin America, too. I probably should have mentioned it in the video.

[@facundoibarra9339]

Beware that that "bo" not neccesarily means you. Here in argentina is also used just to catch someone else's attention at the end of a phrase.