Spanish pronouns


Spanish pronouns in some ways work quite differently from their English counterparts. Subject pronouns are often omitted, and object pronouns come in clitic and non-clitic forms. When used as clitics, object pronouns can appear as proclitics that come before the verb or as enclitics attached to the end of the verb in different linguistic environments. There is also regional variation in the use of pronouns, particularly the use of the informal second-person singular vos and the informal second-person plural vosotros.

Personal pronouns

s in Spanish have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions. Spanish is a pro-drop language with respect to subject pronouns. Like French and other languages with the T–V distinction, Spanish has a distinction in its second person pronouns that has no equivalent in modern English. Object pronouns come in two forms: clitic and non-clitic, or stressed. With clitics, object pronouns are generally proclitic, but enclitic forms are mandatory in certain environments. The personal pronoun "vos" is used in some areas of Latin America, particularly in Central America, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, the state of Zulia in Venezuela, and the Andean regions of Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.
The table below shows a list of personal pronouns from Peninsular, Latin American and Ladino Spanish. Ladino or Judaeo-Spanish, spoken by Sephardic Jews, is different from Latin American and Peninsular Spanish in that it retains rather archaic forms and usage of personal pronouns.
1 Only in countries with voseo
2 Primarily in Spain; other countries use ustedes as the plural regardless of level of formality. A disused equivalent of vuestro/vuestra is voso/vosa.
Note: Usted and ustedes'' are grammatically third person even though they are functionally second person. See Spanish personal pronouns for more information and the regional variation of pronoun use.

Demonstrative pronouns

  • Near the speaker : éste, ésta, esto, éstos, éstas
  • Near the listener : ése, ésa, eso, ésos, ésas
  • Far from both speaker and listener : aquél, aquélla, aquello, aquéllos, aquéllas
According to a decision by the Real Academia in the 1960s, the accents should be used only when it is necessary to avoid ambiguity with the demonstrative determiners. However, the normal educated standard is still as above. Foreign learners may safely adhere to either standard. There is also no accent on the neuter forms esto, eso and aquello, which do not have determiner equivalents.

Relative pronouns

The main relative pronoun in Spanish is que, from Latin. Others include el cual, quien, and donde.

''Que''

Que covers "that", "which", "who", "whom" and the null pronoun in their functions of subject and direct-object relative pronouns:
  • La carta que te envié era larga = "The letter I sent you was long"
  • La carta, que te envié, era larga = "The letter, which I did send you, was long"
  • La gente que no sabe leer ni escribir se llama analfabeta = "People who cannot read or write are called illiterate"
  • Esa persona, que conozco muy bien, no es de fiar = "That person, whom I know very well, is not trustworthy"
Note from the last example that unlike with other relative pronouns, personal a does not have to be used with que when used as a personal direct object.

''El que''

When que is used as the object of a preposition, the definite article is added to it, and the resulting form inflects for number and gender, resulting in the forms el que, la que, los que, las que and the neuter lo que. Unlike in English, the preposition must go right before the relative pronoun "which" or "whom":
  • Ella es la persona a la que le di el dinero = "She is the person I gave the money to"/"She is the person to whom I gave the money"
  • Es el camino por el que caminabais = "It is the path you all were walking along"/"It is the path along which you all were walking"
In some people's style of speaking, the definite article may be omitted after a, con and de in such usage, particularly when the antecedent is abstract or neuter:
  • La aspereza con que la trataba = "The harshness with which he treated her"
  • No tengo nada en que creer = "I have nothing to believe in"/"I have nothing in which to believe"
After en, the definite article tends to be omitted if precise spatial location is not intended:
  • Lo hiciste de la misma forma en que lo hizo él = "You did it the same way he did it"
  • La casa en que vivo = "The house in which I live"

    ''Lo que''

When used without a precise antecedent, lo que has a slightly different meaning from that of el que, and is usually used as the connotation of "that which" or "what":
  • Lo que hiciste fue malo = "What you did was bad"
  • Lo que creí no es correcto = "What I believed is not right"

    ''El cual''

The pronoun el cual can replace que. It is generally more emphatic and formal than que, and it always includes the definite article. It is derived from the Latin, and it has the following forms: el cual, la cual, los cuales, las cuales, and the neuter lo cual. It can be used as a formal, emphatic replacement for que in non-defining clauses, for both subjects and direct objects, and it can also be used as a formal, emphatic replacement for el que as the object of some prepositions. Moreover, it is often preferred to el que entirely in certain contexts. In non-defining clauses, the fact that it agrees for gender and number can make it clearer to what it refers. The fact that it cannot be used as the subject or direct object in defining clauses also makes it clear that a defining clause is not intended:
  • Los niños y sus madres, las cuales eran de Valencia, me impresionaron = "The children and their mothers, who were from Valencia, impressed me"
When used as a personal direct object, personal a must be used:
  • Esa persona, a la cual conozco yo muy bien, no es de fiar = "That person, whom I know very well, is not to be trusted"
In such situations as well as with the object of monosyllabic prepositions, the use of el cual is generally purely a matter of high style. This is used sparingly in Spanish, and foreigners should thus avoid over-using it:
  • Es el asunto al cual se refería usted = "It is the matter to which you were referring"
In more everyday style, this might be phrased as:
  • Es el asunto al que te referías = "It is the matter to which you were referring"
After multisyllabic prepositions and prepositional phrases, however, el cual is often preferred entirely:
  • Un régimen bajo el cual es imposible vivir = "A régime under which it is impossible to live"
  • Estas cláusulas, sin perjuicio de las cuales... = "These clauses, notwithstanding which..."
El cual is further generally preferred entirely when, as the object of a preposition, it is separated from its antecedent by intervening words. The more words that intervene, the more the use of el cual is practically obligatory:
  • Es un billete con el que se puede viajar pero por el cual se paga sólo dos euros = "It is a ticket with which you can travel but for which you pay just two euros"

    ''Cual''

The bare form cual is used as the relative adjective, which only inflects for number:
  • en cual caso = "in which case"
  • a cual tiempo = "at which time"
  • cuales cosas = "which things"

    ''Quien''

The pronoun quien comes from the Latin, "whom", the accusative of, "who".
It too can replace que in certain circumstances. Like the English pronouns "who" and "whom", it can only be used to refer to people.
It is invariable for gender, and was originally invariable for number. However, by analogy with other words, the form quienes was invented. Quien as a plural form survives as an archaism that is now considered non-standard.

For subjects

It can represent a subject. In this case, it is rather formal and is largely restricted to non-defining clauses.
Unlike el cual, it does not inflect for gender, but it does inflect for number, and it also specifies that it does refer to a person:
  • Los niños con sus mochilas, quienes eran de Valencia, me impresionaron = "The children with their rucksacks, who were from Valencia, impressed me"

    As the object of a preposition

Quien is particularly common as the object of a preposition when the clause is non-defining, but is also possible in defining clauses:
  • Ella es la persona a quien le di el dinero = "She is the person to whom I gave the money"
  • José, gracias a quien tengo el dinero, es muy generoso = "José, thanks to whom I have the money, is very generous"

    ''Donde'', ''a donde'', ''como'' and ''cuando''

Donde is ultimately from a combination of the obsolete adverb onde and the preposition de. Onde is from Latin, which also meant "whence" or "from where", and over the centuries it lost the "from" meaning and came to mean just "where". This meant that, to say "whence" or "where from", the preposition de had to be added, and this gave d'onde. The meaning of d'onde once again eroded over time until it came to mean just "where", and prepositions therefore had to be added once more. This gave rise to the modern usage of donde for "where" and a donde for "to where", among others. Note that all this means that, etymologically speaking, de donde is the rather redundant "from from from where", and a donde is the rather contradictory "to from from where". This tendency goes even further with the vulgar form ande, which is often used to mean "where" as well. In the Ladino dialect of Spanish, the pronoun onde is still used, where donde still means "whence" or "where from", and in Latin America, isolated communities and rural areas retain this as well.
Como is from, "how", the ablative of, "what way".
Cuando is from, "when".