Spanish grammar by topic › Tú vs usted (and vosotros vs ustedes), explained

Tú vs usted (and vosotros vs ustedes), explained

Spanish has a friendly “you” (tú) and a polite one (usted). Usted takes the él form of the verb: ¿cómo está usted? In Spain, tú is used widely, even with strangers of your own age; usted is for formal situations and older people.

For more than one person, Spain says vosotros to friends and ustedes formally; Latin America uses ustedes for everyone. In Argentina, Uruguay and parts of Central America, vos replaces tú.

The essentials

Tú with friends, family, children and people your age: ¿cómo estás?
Usted with the él form, for formal situations: ¿cómo está usted?
Vosotros (Spain, informal plural): ¿cómo estáis? Ustedes (formal in Spain, all plurals in Latin America): ¿cómo están?
Commands follow the same choice: siéntate (tú), siéntese (usted), sentaos (vosotros), siéntense (ustedes).
Vos (voseo): vos tenés, vos sos. You'll understand it; the course teaches tú and accepts vos forms.

Every lesson on this topic

Each lesson has a full explanation, examples you can listen to, and exercises with answers.

A0 (the A0 course)

Subject pronouns: yo, tú, él, ella…: yo, tú, él, ella, usted, nosotros/as, vosotros/as, ellos/as, ustedes; dropping the pronoun
Tú or usted; vosotros or ustedes: Choosing the friendly or the polite 'you', in Spain and Latin America

B1 (the B1 course)

Commands with usted and ustedes: Polite instructions use the subjunctive: hable, coman, siéntese, no se preocupe.

C2 (the C2 course)

Regional variation: voseo, ustedes, seseo and ceceo, vocabulary: Understand and adapt to Rioplatense voseo, Latin American ustedes, seseo, ceceo and regional vocabulary.

In the app, these lessons are taught one idea at a time with audio, practised with questions that explain the rule when you slip, and brought back for review on later days.

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