Vosotros vs. Ustedes in Spain

[@c4j754]

Very interesting! I have very limited experience speaking with Spaniards. One time, I was accomodating some friends-of-friends from Spain. While we were out to dinner, they asked me why I kept calling them "ustedes". (it's hard to make the real-world switch when hardly anyone I've ever met uses vosotros!) My interpretation at the time was that they considered it to be too formal since we had spent the whole day together and felt like we had become true friends. Now I wonder if what they really were thinking was "dude, nobody talks like that..." 😂

[@tenminutespanish]

Interesting. I think most Spaniards are aware that Latin American Spanish employs ustedes exclusively and wouldn't ask why someone who speaks Latin American Spanish would use ustedes. Maybe they felt that your Spanish is more Peninsular. That's the only guess I can come up with.

[@bilbohob7179]

The first intrepretation is the correct....

[@SiddharthS96]

Really interesting video! I've noticed Spanish KZbinrs use vosotros when addressing their viewers, so I guess you're right!

[@LimeGreenTeknii]

What I'd be interested in: which pronoun do they direct commands such as, "Please like and subscribe" to?

[@SiddharthS96]

@@LimeGreenTeknii usually vosotros, at least the channels I've watched

[@bilbohob7179]

to younger and informal viewers... in a formal situation or in a formal video they use ustedes to a serious and formal audience

[@DonPaliPalacios]

Ecuadorian here, from Guayaquil. It's not an everyday occurrence, but I've heard and read some Ecuadorians use the possessive "vuestro" in very formal contexts. For example, a business letter may start "Estimados señores XYZ: En atención a vuestra solicitud…" I imagine this also occurs in other Latin American countries. It's ironic, considering that in Spain "vuestro" is more informal than "su" as a 2nd-person plural possessive. What happens is that "su" may be ambiguous, as it is also the possessive for usted, él, ella, ellos, ellas. More frequently, "su" is replaced by "de ustedes", "de él", "de ella", etc.

[@Entropy825]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[@bawdshau]

I wonder if it has any connections to an antiquated way of formally addressing someone with “Vuestra Merced”

[@diegocabreraesquivel2058]

I always say "Hablar de usted" o "hablar de tú". Often I hear "tratar de..." Not a Spaniard. I think people in Mexico would be completely oblivious of "vosotros" if it wasn't for popular Spanish series and movies. People generally don't know how to conjugate verbs using vosotros, but this is not a hindrance to understanding Spaniards. In some churches they use Bibles in which vosotros is used and in some procedures in the Senate or Congress vosotros is used, but not as a plural pronoun, it is used as a singular. My guess is that it is a fossil of the old use of vosotros to address one person in a very formal way. One day I was walking down the street and saw a religious sign that used vosotros, os and verbs conjugated in the vosotros form. I told my brother and he replied "so what?" He, as many people, are not interested in different plural pronouns. I believe Spaniards don't care either. In the well-known series for teenagers, Élite, the cast has had people from Mexico, Chile and, in the lastest season, Argentina. The actors/characters from Latinamerican countries never use vosotros and people don't seem to care. Of course, this is a series and the dialogues are made-up, but if the usage of vosotros over ustedes was really a big deal I think the director would have asked them to use vosotros. All kids in middle school have to fill in conjugation tables. The drudgery of Spanish lessons. When I was little I never conjugated verbs using vosotros nor vos and my teachers never asked me to. It is my understanding that in other countries such as Argentina and Colombia, teachers do ask students to conjugate using vosotros. (In Argentina also using tú).

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting and thoughtful contribution! Thank you for your insight.

[@TheMaru666]

We never used " vosotros " as a singular , but " vos " for singular and plural ( in singular as a show of respect ) and " vosotros " was a way to show that it was plutal and avoid anbiguity

[@diegocabreraesquivel2058]

@@TheMaru666 Yeah, you right, I didn't mean the pronoun, I meant the conjugations and "os" in some contexts such as in some churches or in the Congress are use in the singular to show deference.

[@bilbohob7179]

@@diegocabreraesquivel2058 it is called "vos reverencial" and is used in Spain too

[@diegocabreraesquivel2058]

@@bilbohob7179 I never said it was not used in Spain, I only commented on how it is used in the Americas

[@garthhunt7238]

My friend and I recently returned from a 5 week vacation in Spain. We were routinely referred to with usted individually, and vosotros, together. Our trip included these cities: Barcelona, Zaragosa, Ciudad Real, Cordoba, Segovia, Granada, Murcia, Sevilla, and back to Barcelona.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks for the contribution!

[@angeljimenez3362]

Hi there! I was born in Madrid about fourty years ago and I've always lived in Madrid except for some time I spent abroad, so I guess that my dialect can be considered kind of standard of central Spain. In my dialect, "ustedes" is just completely equivalent to "usted" for the plural case. Both are used to refer to the second person in formal situations. No distinction at all between plural and singular cases. In my dialect, you will hear "aquí tienen las llaves de su habitación" at the reception of a hotel much more frequently that "aquí tenéis las llaves de vuestra habitación". Keep in mind that just because a native speaker says something or even writes something, that doesn't mean it is correct. We make grammar mistakes and inconsistencies constantly, we all make mistakes. But they're still mistakes after all.

[@kwongyung5463]

Spaniards use “vosotros” mainly for historic reasons, also the basis of “vuestra merced” becoming “usted”. Royalty is always spoken to in “vosotros” conjugations, even when only one single dignitary is addressed. For example, in Game of Thrones and House of Dragon, all subtitles in European Spanish use “vosotros” conjugations to address royalty, one or multiple. Hence, Spaniards continue to use “vosotros” conjugations to address a group of dignitaries. Unlike medieval era, however, “usted” conjugations are used to address a single dignitary in modern-day Spain.

[@TheMaru666]

What you are talking about is the majestatic voseo . It is the use of " vos " as a singular second person pronoun with the same conjugation as the plural . It was used in the past , but singular vos is not used anymore in Spain .

[@bilbohob7179]

It is not "vosotros" conjugation, it is "voseo reverencial", and you use "vos" not "vosotros"

[@musicredsubaru]

Having spent time in Spain, I've noticed this too, although I think it's more of a socio-cultural-political shift than a linguistic one. One advantage of using "vosotros" instead of "ustedes" is the prevention of ambiguity in subject and object pronouns. I was working as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Spain for a couple of years, and my religious leaders "forbade" us to use the familiar tú and vosotros forms. This was fine until the pronouns, which are the same in formal second-person plural and third-person plural, etc., would cause temporary confusion or ambiguity about what or whom we were referring to at any given time. Were we referring to the people we were speaking to, or were we referring to third persons not present? Or were we referring to an impersonal form about universals, or were we asking people to whom we were talking to do something now? This resulted in saying "ustedes" more than Spaniards would like to hear, and I got the impression that the formal form felt too depersonalized or too monarchical. Older generations growing up during the Franco era didn't seem to mind so much, but the younger generation minded it a lot. And I mean _a lot!_ This frustruated me as a missionary because it sometimes made us go into "rodeos" during conversations.

[@IntelligentAtheism]

En el canal KZbin del "Congreso de los diputados - Canal parlamento" escucharás muchos "ustedes".

[@tenminutespanish]

¡Mil gracias! He estado buscando algo exactamente así, pero no sabía dónde buscar. ¡Gracias, gracias!

[@falconheavy595]

I have seen in Spanish TED Talk the speaker refers the audience with Vosotros

[@SPVRINNA]

I always assumed that in Spain the situation was similar to that of Italian, where textbooks teach that "Loro" (=ustedes) is the formal second person plural subject pronoun and "voi" is the informal, but in practice you'll likely never hear "Loro" used for anything beyond third person plural. I know there are a lot of shared features of European Spanish and Italian, such as the increasing emphasis of the present perfect over the preterite, so maybe this is part of that.

[@albertromero9353]

You’ll hear “ustedes” with a lot more frequency in Andalucía than you would in the north (even there vosotros is used way more often) The verb attached to the “ustedes” will however be often conjugated as if it was “vosotros.” ¿Ustedes que queréis?

[@JoelMunizVilla]

En toda Hispanoamérica y en las Islas Canarias, «ustedes» es el pronombre de segunda persona plural, mientras que en España peninsular esta forma se reserva solamente para el trato cortés y en el habla informal se emplea el pronombre «vosotros», excepto en algunas zonas de Andalucía, donde «ustedes» es también informal. En gran parte de Andalucía Occidental y algunos lugares de Andalucía Oriental se emplea ustedes en lugar de vosotros, con la particularidad de que se produce una solución mixta, usando ustedes con formas verbales propias de segunda persona del plural (vosotros). Normalmente se conjuga como si fuese 3.ª persona del plural (ustedes aman), excepto raras ocasiones en el sur de España y en las islas Canarias.Esto contrasta con el uso en América del sur y Centroamérica donde la forma vosotros y sus formas asociadas verbales y pronominales han sido reemplazadas por ustedes. Throughout South and Central America and in the Canary Islands, «ustedes» is the second person plural pronoun, while in mainland Spain this form is reserved only for courteous treatment and in informal speech the pronoun «vosotros» is used, except in some areas of Andalusia, where "you" is also informal. In a large part of Western Andalusia and some places in Eastern Andalusia, ustedes are used instead of vosotros, with the particularity that a mixed solution is produced, using ustedes with proper verb forms of the second person plural (vosotros). It is normally conjugated as if it were the 3rd person plural (ustedes aman), except on rare occasions in southern Spain and the Canary Islands. This is in contrast to usage in South and Central America where the form vosotros and its associated verbal and pronominal forms have been replaced by ustedes.

[@teynaranjas788]

Qué buena noticia lo de Andalucía! Quiero mudarme allí en los próximos dos años y temo ser demasiado mayor para adaptarme bien al "vosotros". (Me enseñaron español en EEUU y he vivido en América Central.) Espero que Córdoba cuente como una de las localidades andaluzas que tiende a usar ustedes en lugar de vosotros!

[@antoniofraguadols8373]

I had never heard the word"ustedeo" until i got into the university (spanish philology in Madrid)

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

I'm from Argentina and I have never even heard someone say "ustedeo." It's not a thing I'm aware of. We always say tratar/hablar de usted.

[@mep6302]

Same. I've only heard voseo and tuteo but never ustedeo

[@allenellsworth5799]

I always thought Vosotros was like "Y'all" in Southern America.

[@tenminutespanish]

Vosotros barely exists in South America. It is not used the way we use y'all in English in South America.

[@allenellsworth5799]

@@tenminutespanish Sorry for the lexical ambiguity. Meant the southern part of America. Not the continent South America. I'm not even sure why I thought it was the same. I don't use Vosotros. Haven't learned any of it but still had the misconception. Probably because of it's similarity to Nosotros. The word

[@tenminutespanish]

@@allenellsworth5799 Ahhh. Sorry. Ya, you're right. Vosotros = vos + otros. Very much like y'all = you + all. You're 100% correct.

[@wilsonsarmiento1391]

Amazing videos!!!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@miguelceromil]

There are dialects in Andalucía in which the main second person singular pronoun is "tú", but the prefered plural is "ustedes". What's more, in this case they conjugate verbs whose subject is "ustedes" in second person, not the third one.

[@FrancisCWolfe]

I think is common cross-linguistically. There's just less scope to offend with a group of people.

[@pennyhershaw5162]

We miss you!

[@tompeled6193]

¿Puedes analizar la pronunciación de un estudiante que su lengua materna no es inglés?

[@tenminutespanish]

Por supuesto. Y ya lo he hecho. Mi primer análisis fue de un hablante nativo de alemán. Y entre las grabaciones que he recibido que no he podido analizar hasta ahora, tengo algunas de personas que hablan lenguas asiáticas y europeas. ¿Tenías alguna lengua específica en mente?

[@tompeled6193]

@@tenminutespanish No. Quiero oírte hablando de la fonología de otras lenguas y como influye los acentos en español de los que hablan estas lenguas.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@tompeled6193 Ah, lo siento mucho, pero probablemente te voy a decepcionar. Sólo puedo hablar de lo que conozco, y no conozco las reglas de pronunciación de otras lenguas que no sean inglés y español. Haré lo que pueda con esos análisis, pero no voy a poder decir mucho acerca de la fonología de otras lenguas.

[@ruessinov2360]

ay tio muy complicado! 😄

[@bromie21]

I´m surprised you came to those conclusions in your summary, seems to me that according to those stats given at around 7 mins its at the very least a mixed bag. You used the phrase - ´ONLY 75%´ - that's a landslide majority where i´m from!

[@tenminutespanish]

I'd be happy to explain my views in more detail. Which conclusion did you find surprising? Which statistic or finding didn't seem to support it? I'm not trying to be confrontational. I'm just not sure, and I want to he precise in my response.

[@bromie21]

You seem to be saying that 'only 75%' would use ustedes in your example, yet in your summary you say the majority use vosotros. I don't understand that.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@bromie21 A couple important points to understand: 1) This video isn't about whether Spaniards use vosotros or ustedes more often. That's not even a question. They use vosotros way, way more often. The video is about whether they use vosotros for a group of people when they would use usted for some of the individuals in that group. This is a special circumstance, and a different question. 2) In my summary I said: a) “Vosotros is the most commonly used second person plural in Spain”. This is unquestionably true. Vosotros is used for almost all ordinary communication in Spain. b) Some Spaniards say they rarely if ever use ustedes. c) Some Spaniards use vosotros to address a group of people, even when they would use usted with individual members of that group. All of these things are true and are supported by the data I cited.

[@mep6302]

I think Spaniards use vosotros instead of ustedes in those cases where they use usted for each person is that they may think using ustedes equals speaking Latin American Spanish.

[@ricardo4943-k6b]

Can you make a video on why spain uses vosotros, but doesn't use vos?

[@tenminutespanish]

This is an interesting suggestion. I've hinted at it in my videos on Latin American vos, but haven't addressed it directly. Let me think about it.

[@chrissystewart6268]

I want to be an Spanish translator

[@tenminutespanish]

I understand your interest! I love translating and interpreting! My undergraduate degree was Spanish translating/interpreting.

[@Vinvininhk]

The Usted test: 🐤 This is an Usted. 🐤🐤 Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two ________.

[@tenminutespanish]

Oh, I know! Usted + usted = vosotros. Did I win?

[@Vinvininhk]

@@tenminutespanish further research is needed