Pronombres

Pronouns are words which are used in the place of a noun (e.g. using “he,” “she” or “they” in place of using someone’s actual name).

Spanish however has a few more pronouns than we’re used to in English. There are five ways of saying “you”, and to use them we must consider things like the formality of the situation and even what area of the world you’re in.

• Pronombres personales
• Subject pronouns
• Pronombres de objeto
• Direct object pronouns
• Indirect object pronouns
• Pronombres posesivos
• Pronombres demostrativos
• Pronombres reflexivos
• Relative pronouns
• Pronombres indefinidos
• Interrogative

Personal pronouns are short words which replace the names of people, things or places in order to make a sentence shorter and more concise—for example, instead of repeating a person’s name over and over in a conversation, we could substitute it with the word “they.”

They are split into “subject pronouns” and “object pronouns,” depending on the role the word takes in a sentence.

The subject pronouns replace the name of the subject in a sentence: whoever is performing the action. Spanish has 12 subject pronouns, which are

• Yo — I
• Tú — you (singular, informal)
• Él — he
• Ella — she
• Usted — you (singular, formal)
• Ustedes — you (plural, formal or informal depending on the country)
• Ellos / ellas — they
• Vosotros / vosotras — you (plural, informal used in Spain)
• Nosotros / nosotras — we

Object pronouns replace the “object” of the sentence, the person or thing that receives the action of a verb. We split these into “direct object” and “indirect object.”

Direct object pronouns receive the action of the verb directly. For example, in the phrase su papá la quiere (her dad loves her), the direct object is “her,” because she is receiving the action of the verb “love”.

• Spanish direct object pronouns are
• Me — me
• Te — you
• Lo , la — him, her, it, you (formal)
• Los , las — them, you all (formal in Spain)
• Os — you all (informal in Spain)
• Nos — us

Indirect object pronouns are indirectly affected by the action of the verb.

For example, consider the phrase le escribo una carta. (I write him a letter). In this case, le (him or her) is the indirect object, as the verb is not directly affecting them.

They’re almost the same as direct object pronouns—just with lo and la becoming le, and los and las becoming les:

• Me — me
• Te — you
• Le — him, her, it, you (formal)
• Les — them, you all (formal in Spain)
• Os — you all (informal in Spain)
• Nos — us

Like the rest of the pronouns we’ve seen, possessive pronouns are also words which replace nouns—but also indicate ownership.

They’re often confused with possessive adjectives, which are different because possessive adjectives merely describe nouns and do not actually replace them.

Here are the possessive pronouns in Spanish:

• Mío , mía , míos , mías — mine
• Tuyo , tuya , tuyos , tuyas — yours (informal singular)
• Suyo , suya , suyos , suyas — his, hers, theirs, yours (formal singular and plural)
• Vuestro , vuestra , vuestros , vuestras — yours (informal plural in Spain)
• Nuestro , nuestra , nuestros , nuestras — ours

Demonstrative pronouns are used to point out specific people or things. They change depending on the distance of the speaker, and of course the gender of whatever is being referred to.

Sometimes, though, you’ll find yourself in situations where you don’t actually know the gender of the object you’re referring to: in these cases, you’ll want to use neuter demonstrative pronouns.

• Este (m), esta (f), esto (n) — this
• Estos (m), estas (f) — these
• Ese (m), esa (f), eso (n) — that
• Esos (m), esas (f) — those
• Aquel (m), aquella (f), aquello (n) — that (over there)
• Aquellos (m), aquellas (f) — those (over there)

When the object of a verb refers to the same noun as the subject of that verb, we use reflexive pronouns.

Here are the reflexive pronouns alongside their English translations:

• Me — myself
• Te — yourself
• Se — himself, herself, themselves
• Se — yourself (formal), yourselves (formal in Spain)
• Os — yourselves (informal in Spain)
• Nos — ourselves

Relative pronouns are words or phrases which refer back to a noun that was used earlier in communication. In English, they’re often words like “who,” “whose,” “that” and “which.”

For example, in the phrase “the food that I bought,” the relative pronoun is “that.”

The following words and phrases are used as relative pronouns in Spanish:

• Que
• Quien , quienes
• El que , la que , los que , las que
• El cual , la cual , los cuales , las cuales
• Lo que , lo cual
• Cuando , donde

Indefinite pronouns are words which don’t actually refer to anything in particular—that is, they aren’t specific to any person, amount, or thing. In English we would use words like “anything,” “everybody,” “none,” “several” and “some.”

Here are a few of common indefinite pronouns you’ll come across in Spanish:

• Alguien — somebody, someone
• Alguno / alguna / algunos / algunas — one, some, any
• Cualquiera — any, any one, anyone
• Nada — nothing, not anything
• Nadie — no one, not anyone
• Ninguno / ninguna — none, no one
• Otro / otra — other one, another one
• Poco / poca — little, few

Finally, we have interrogative pronouns: these are pronouns which are used to ask questions (hence the name “interrogative”).

Here are some of the most common interrogative pronouns in Spanish:

• Dónde — where
• Qué — what
• Por qué — why
• Cómo — how
• Cuándo — when
• Quién — who