UNION ACADEMY
Spanish – Giraldo
Study guide 5
Subject pronouns
The subject of a sentence tells who is doing the action. You often use people’s names as the subject:
Example:
Gregorio escucha música. Gregory listens to music.
Ana canta y baila. Ana sings and dances.
You also use subject pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they) to tell who is doing an action. The subject pronouns replace people’s names:
Él escucha música. He listens to music.
Ella canta y baila. She sings and dances.
Here are all the subject pronouns in Spanish:
yo I
nosotros we (masc., masc./fem.)
nosotras we (fem.)
tú you (familiar) you (masc., masc./fem.) you (fem.)
usted (Ud.) you (formal) you (formal)
él he
ellos they (masc., masc./fem.)
ella she
ellas they (fem.)
ustedes (Uds.) you (formal)
Tú, usted, ustedes, and vosotros(as) all mean “you.”
• Use tú with family, friends, people your age or younger, and anyone you call by his or her first name.
• Use usted with adults you address with a title, such as señor, señora, profesor(a), etc. Usted is usually written as Ud.
• In Latin America, use ustedes when speaking to two or more people, regardless of age. Ustedes is usually written as Uds.
• In Spain, use vosotros(as) when speaking to two or more people you call tú individually: tú + tú = vosotros(as). Use ustedes when talking to two or more people you call usted individually.If a group is made up of males only or of both males and femalestogether, use the masculine forms: nosotros, vosotros, ellos.
If a group is all females, use the feminine forms:
nosotras, vosotras, ellas.
You can combine a subject pronoun and a name to form a subject.
Alejandro y yo =
nosotros Pepe y tú = ustedes
Carlos y ella = ellos
Lola y ella = ellas
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ctice and
Present tense of -ar verbs
You already know that the infinitive forms of Spanish verbs always end in -ar, -er, or -ir. The largest group of verbs end in -ar. Hablar is one of these -ar verbs.
You will want to use verbs in ways other than in the infinitive form. To do this, you
will drop the -ar ending and make changes.
To create the forms of most -ar verbs, you first drop the -ar from the infinitive, leaving the stem:
hablar ➞habl-
Then you add the verb endings -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, or -an to the stem.
Here are the forms of hablar:
In Spanish, the present tense form of a verb can be translated into English in two ways: Hablo español. I speak Spanish. I am speaking Spanish.
The verb endings always indicate who is doing the action. In this case, they tell who is speaking. Because of this, you can often use the verb without a subject:
Hablo inglés. ¿Hablas español?
Subject pronouns are often used for emphasis or clarification.
Ella habla inglés pero él habla español