Vosotros in Latin America
I know the 'vosotros' form is only used commonly in Spain, but if you were to go to Latin America, would they understand you when you say 'estaís' instead of 'están ustedes'?
5 Answers
I learned Spanish for the first time in Spain. And then returned to the United States, whereupon I immediately made many native Spanish speaking friends who were not from Spain. And I do get giggles and teasing from my Latin American friends when I use vosotros, but I am immediately understood. There is no lag time, no confusion.
I do, however, get the feeling that maybe it sounds a little "la dee da" to them, or maybe simply antiquated. Like I would feel if one of my friends used "ye", which is second person plural in English, though we dropped that a much longer time ago, both on this side of the Atlantic and the other. Anyway, I learned Spanish that way, and I would not be able to stop using vosotros or, even harder, use ustedes (maybe I could back it up to "tú" forms, like English) without radically changing the whole structure in my head, and that's not going to happen. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to matter whatsoever. Just tease-worthy.
However, that doesn't mean I understand the Latin American speaker quite as quickly. I still kind of look around at who you're talking to if you use ustedes, and that goes both for it as a substitute for vosotros, as well as the way in which usted/ustedes is used more commonly for tú as well. I rarely use usted, unless I am clearly in a formal situation. But usted seems to be used more generally among Spanish speakers in Latin America. And it is jarring to me.
We have someone who comes to our house who is Guatamalan and she uses usted for everybody. It totally throws me and I admit I often get confused as to how I'm supposed to know the object of her sentence when everything seems like it's in the third person. I also get uncomfortable that she should use it with me because it is so formal sounding, and that's assuming I'm not simply looking around for the person she's referring to because I'm not aware she means me. Our valencian au pair says she thinks it's pretty common, and she even heard her use "le" to her own granddaughter. But it doesn't confuse her because she is a native speaker, which I am not. My daughters, who are not originally native speakers but are bilingual and fluent also have no trouble adapting and understanding, either. I get that. Like it wouldn't have any problem if I were to listen to extreme dialects of English that would absolutely reduce my au pair's comprehension to 0%.
The rest is ok, though. Except for that one woman from Guatemala, among my Latin American friends, tú is common enough that I don't get thrown too much, other than vocabulary and accent. My Spanish friends used to make me DEMONSTRATE that my tongue was properly touching my teeth for "ce" and "ci" sounds, as well as certain "d" sounds, which was hard even for someone who had not learned it any differently. I absolutely had it drilled into me from the start, and I wasn't even unlearning pronouncing it differently, so it just sounds so weird not to hear native speakers here do the same. Like everybody just...decided to drop an entire letter from the alphabet.
I didn't expect that. I went from simply not understanding Spanish as an American to coming home to find that an entire segment of the population now suddenly makes sense. Like I could suddenly hear people's thoughts, or like I had an automatic magic decoder ring in my head. The sound of it is familiar, since I've always HEARD Spanish, it just didn't make any sense to me. And now, suddenly, it does. Which is really just an astoundingly awesome thing. That being said, everybody sounds like a hissing balloon!
I sometimes mis "os" and "vosotros." It's just so...useful and learning Spanish in Spain meant I didn't realize that there was a world of Spanish speakers who simply didn't use it. As I was planning to go home, I got a lot of "get used to no vosotros." Um, wait just a minute. There's an entire GRAMMATICAL PERSON that isn't used? It's not just going to be one of those "lift vs. elevator" things?
I haven't been to Argentina, but I hear they use it there.
No, neither do we.
the countries with historically close ties to Spain and farthest from the Caribbean and Mexico use vosotros
Colombia - greatest influence from Spain Argentina and Chile - farthest from Caribbean and Mexico
You would get funny looks from some people but they would understand. I haven't been to Argentina, but I hear they use it there. I interact alot with Central Americans and they always laugh when I use it.
Gekkosan has this thread about two different types of Spanish, which I see everyday in my daily dealings.
I can tell you, Maria and Alexa whom are quite educated, they understand it perfectly. I can easily use vos with her, and she corrects me to the right way when I am wrong, just like a living textbook, a beautiful, kind, amazing, living textbook of knowledge.
Olga, on the other hand (also very sweet and great) and her husband whom are from a rural farm town in Mexico do not understand it at all. My guess is that it is taught at school in Mexico, but not at an early age. Only a guess though, so take that with some salt.
