Why do we use te instead of tu for "your?"
How do I know which one to use? When I look up how to say "your" in Spanish, te doesn't show up.
Te: Ponte los zapatos. (Put on your shoes.) ¿Como te llamos? (What is your name.)
Tu: Dame tu dinero. (Give me your money.)
Which one do I use to show ownership?
3 Answers
Te is a personal pronoun used in acusitive case.
Tu is a possive adjective used before a noun. Tuyo(a) is used after the noun or when its corresponding noun is not present. These show ownership, ie: tus zapatos, los zapatos tuyos, los tuyos.
Llamas with A.
A little grammar lesson from me:
The word your in English is a possessive pronoun (in Spanish there are 8(!) forms to express this: tu, tus [for 1 person who's familiar], su, sus [for people you address "usted" or "ustedes" - yes it's singular and plural], and vuestro, vuestra, vuestros, vuestras [for 2 or more people in your family or friends - like telling your kids, "Get your shoes" vuestras zapatas]. Clear? Okay.......
given all that, in Spanish there are expressions that are translated into English using "your" when in Spanish it's not literally "your". Your 2 examples are to the point:
Ponte los zapatos literally means "Put on you (your feet implied) the shoes." So te means you not your.
¿Cómo te llamas? literally means "How do you call (llamas) you?" Again like above te means you not your.
Since in both of those sentences te is the direct object of the verbs it is considered accusative case (when a noun is used as a direct object).
"te llamas" comes from the verb "llamarse" "ponte" comes from the verb "ponerse" none of these means "your". they are just conjugations of the verbs: te llamas is the presens 2nd person form of llamarse ponte is the imperativ 2nd person form of ponerse, I think (someone correct me if wrong)
