{"id":22937,"date":"2026-04-18T08:20:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/el-voseo-another-way-to-speak-spanish-iii\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:46:39","slug":"el-voseo-another-way-to-speak-spanish-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/el-voseo-another-way-to-speak-spanish-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"El voseo: another way to speak Spanish (III)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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e conclude our special on voseo by analyzing its grammatical structure: pronouns, changes in conjugation, and specific verb tenses. The goal is for you to achieve a full understanding of voseo speech through clear examples. Although tuteo is universally accepted, acquiring this knowledge will allow you to connect much more naturally with the culture and speakers of voseo regions.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The pronoun vos<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>

In voseo<\/em> regions, the pronoun vos<\/em> takes on the role of the second person singular in informal contexts, displacing t\u00fa<\/em> and the prepositional form ti<\/em>. However, it is essential to remember that this change only affects the subject and the object of a preposition; the remaining (unstressed) pronouns stay the same as in tuteo<\/em>. For example, we say \u00bfVos qui\u00e9n sos?<\/em> or Esto es para vos<\/em>, but we keep te<\/em> in phrases like Te lo dije<\/em> (and never *Vos lo dije<\/em>).<\/p>

Pronominal, verbal, and complete voseo<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>

Voseo<\/em> can be pronominal \u2014 that is, using the pronoun vos<\/em> instead of t\u00fa<\/em> but with tuteo<\/em> verb forms (vos comes<\/em>) \u2014 verbal, using t\u00fa<\/em> with voseo<\/em> verb forms (t\u00fa com\u00e9s<\/em>), or complete (vos com\u00e9s<\/em>). You can read more about the historical origins of voseo<\/em> here<\/strong><\/a>, but in short it derives from the so-called Latin majestic plural, which evolved into the reverential voseo<\/em> of Spanish \u2014 a form of respect that inherited plural pronouns and conjugations from Latin into the Spanish singular. As Spanish evolved, it also ceased to be a form of respect and became an informal form of address; but it is precisely this heritage that explains the changes in verb conjugation in voseo<\/em> forms.<\/p>

Voseo<\/em> affects the conjugation of different verb tenses, always in the second person singular. The tenses most frequently affected are the present indicative and the imperative. Let us look, broadly speaking, at voseo<\/em> conjugation for each of these.<\/p>

Present indicative.<\/strong> To obtain the voseo<\/em> form, we take the present indicative of the informal second person plural (vosotros habl\u00e1is, vosotros com\u00e9is, vosotros viv\u00eds<\/em>) and drop the -i-<\/em> from the ending: vos com\u00e9s, vos habl\u00e1s<\/em>. For third-conjugation verbs, the form stays the same: vos viv\u00eds<\/em>. In Chilean voseo<\/em> specifically, first-conjugation verbs drop the -s<\/em> (habl\u00e1is<\/em> ~ habl\u00e1i<\/em>), second-conjugation verbs drop the -i-<\/em> (com\u00e9is<\/em> ~ com\u00eds<\/em>), and third-conjugation verbs remain unchanged. Two very common verbs are irregular: ser<\/em> (t\u00fa eres<\/em> ~ vos sos<\/em>, or soi<\/em> in Chile) and ir<\/em> (t\u00fa vas<\/em> ~ vos vas<\/em>, or vai<\/em> in Chile).<\/p>

Imperative.<\/strong> Building the voseo<\/em> imperative is straightforward: drop the -r<\/em> from the infinitive and add a written accent to the final vowel: hablar<\/em> \u2192 habl\u00e1<\/em>, comer<\/em> \u2192 com\u00e9<\/em>, vivir<\/em> \u2192 viv\u00ed<\/em>. This rule holds even for verbs that are irregular in their tuteo<\/em> form: decir<\/em>: di<\/em> (t\u00fa<\/em>), dec\u00ed<\/em> (vos<\/em>); tener<\/em>: ten<\/em> (t\u00fa<\/em>), ten\u00e9<\/em> (vos<\/em>). The verb ir<\/em> has an irregular voseo<\/em> imperative: it takes the form and\u00e1<\/em>.<\/p>

While other verb tenses can also be affected by voseo<\/em>, their use is less widespread and far more specific to certain areas within voseo<\/em> regions. Describing them in this article goes beyond its scope. What you should know is that if you are going to visit a voseo<\/em> area, it is worth checking with a native speaker whether using voseo<\/em> with strangers is appropriate or not. To give just two examples: in Uruguay, voseo<\/em> is fully accepted in educated usage and is even used in formal situations, whereas in Chile it is extremely informal and using it with strangers can come across as rude. I hope this has been useful \u2014 and as always, thanks for reading!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t<\/path><\/svg>Prev<\/span><\/span>Anterior<\/span>Relindo or re lindo? This time, dear Real Academia Espa\u00f1ola, I\u2019m going to push back a little.<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Although when people think of voseo they associate it with Argentina, this linguistic phenomenon is widespread in the Americas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[149,144,167],"tags":[182,222],"class_list":["post-22937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-grammar","category-history","tag-down-en","tag-last-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22937"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22942,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22937\/revisions\/22942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}