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GRAMMAR INDEX

Spanish Grammar A1 ⮟
Ser and Estar in Spanish for Beginners
Está and Hay in Spanish to Express Location
The Present Indicative in Spanish
The verb querer in Spanish: how to use it
The Verb Gustar in Spanish
Demonstratives in Spanish and Adverbs of Place
Possessive Adjectives in Spanish
The Present Continuous in Spanish: Estar + Gerund
The Gerund in Spanish: Form and Basic Uses
Expressions of Quantity in Spanish: Muy and Mucho
Spanish Grammar A2 ⮟
Present Perfect Indicative in Spanish
The Past Simple in Spanish
The Preterite Imperfect Indicative in Spanish
Indicative past tenses in Spanish
How to Express Future in Spanish
How to use por and para in Spanish
Possessive Pronouns in Spanish
Comparative Adjectives in Spanish
Ya in Spanish: Meaning and Usage
Subject Personal Pronouns in Spanish
Expressing Obligation in Spanish
Spanish Grammar B1 ⮟
The Pluperfect Indicative in Spanish
The Future Simple in Spanish
The Conditional Simple in Spanish
The imperative mood in Spanish
The present subjunctive in Spanish
Verbal Periphrasis in Spanish
General Rules of Accentuation in Spanish
Expressing Wishes with the Subjunctive in Spanish
The Use of Cuando with Indicative and Subjunctive
Position of Object Pronouns in Spanish
Spanish Grammar B2 ⮟
Advanced Uses of Conditional Simple
The Future Perfect in Spanish
The Conditional Perfect in Spanish
Present Perfect Subjunctive in Spanish
How do I use the past imperfect subjunctive?
The Pluperfect Subjunctive in Spanish
How to express probability in Spanish
Conditional Clauses in Spanish
Verbs of Change in Spanish
Reported Speech in Spanish
Spanish Grammar C1 ⮟
The passive Voice in Spanish
Adverbial Clauses of Manner in Spanish
Adverbial Clauses of Cause in Spanish
Clauses of Purpose in Spanish
Conditional Conjunctions in Spanish
Uses of the Pronoun SE with Syntactic Function
Uses of the Pronoun Se as a Verb Mark
The Indeterminate Feminine in Spanish

Subject Personal Pronouns in Spanish

Subject personal pronouns in Spanish are a series of pronouns that perform the function of the subject in a sentence.

Remember that a pronoun is a type of word that represents a grammatical person. But what is a grammatical person?

 

 

Grammatical Persons in Spanish

Subject personal pronouns have a direct relationship with grammatical persons, that are the elements of communication in relation to the speaker:

  • The first person is the sender of the message: yo, nosotros, nosotras.
  • The second person is the receiver of the message: tú, vosotros, vosotras, usted, ustedes.
  • The third person is what is being talked about: él, ella, ellos, ellas.

 

Table of subject personal pronouns in Spanish

 

Position of Subject Personal Pronouns in Spanish

The position of subject personal pronouns is very flexible in Spanish. It is determined by emphatic functions (highlighting the person) or deictic functions (pointing out the person mentioned before or after).

The usual position is before the verb. In this case the speaker’s intention is to emphasize the person:

Yo no he hecho nada malo.

However, the position postposed to the verb can point to a noun that has appeared earlier in the sentence or will be introduced later.

La empleada que necesitamos para nuestra empresa es ella.

Also, in a question, it can be placed before the interrogative or after the verb.

¿Quién eres ? / ¿ quién eres?

In any case, subject personal pronouns in Spanish do not usually appear explicitly in the sentence. We only use them when we want to convey the speaker’s intention. We will now analyze the situations in which we usually use subject personal pronouns.

Explicit Use of Subject Personal Pronouns

As we have mentioned, it is not usually necessary to use the subject personal pronouns in the sentence. This is because Spanish verbs express the grammatical persons in their endings:

Hablo (yo) / Hablaste (tú)

However, there are situations in which their explicit use is necessary to express certain intentions of the speaker. Let’s look at some of them:

  • With non-personal verb forms (infinitives, gerunds and participles) to differentiate persons from another personal verb form:

Al hablar ella, me emocioné.

  • To omit a verb that has already appeared previously:

¿No tienes que trabajar hoy? Yo, sí. (Yo sí tengo que trabajar).

  • To avoid ambiguities caused by overlapping verb endings.

Cuando María ganó el premio, vivía yo en París. (If we did not use the pronoun, we would think that Maria lived in Paris).

  • To distribute actions among different people:

Cuando terminamos la universidad yo me fui a Madrid, te quedaste en Barcelona y ella se marchó al extranjero.

  • To contrast opinions:

¿En serio piensas así? Yo no lo veo de esa manera.

  • In response to a question that seeks to identify a person:

—¿Es usted el propietario del vehículo?

—Sí, soy yo.

  • To emphasize some emotion:

Yo ya no puedo más. Necesito unas vacaciones.

In summary, subject personal pronouns in Spanish are normally only used to express a specific intention of the speaker or to avoid confusion. If you want to learn more communicative situations where you should use them, don’t hesitate to reserve classes at Spanishviaskype.com.

 

Infographics about subject personal pronouns in Spanish