Can I ignore "Vosotros"?
Hola amigos. I am a beginner and I have been struggling with verbs. I studied today and completely ignored "vosotros" when reciting verb related questions, statements ect and I found that I struggled a lot less, as I found the uses for "vosotros" confusing. My question is will this hinder my progress? Or can I afford to ignore it? Gracias.
7 Answers
My opinion:
It depends on where you plan on using your Spanish. If you will be using it with Spaniards, you absolutely need it, and must have it down cold. If you have no intent to use it outside of Latin America it is of lesser importance.
It is not hard to understand where to use it, it is anywhere where you would use tú in the plural. Some variants of English use you all, or y'all to indicate a plural you. All vosotros is is a plural informal you. I found it odd when I was first learning to go to ustedes to address a group of children. But that is how it is in Latin America. Not in Spain though.
The forms are quite regular and it is not that difficult to add them to your repertoire.
That all being said, no matter what your plan with Spanish is, things happen outside your expectation, and Spain has a strong cultural influence, and you are unlikely to avoid it. Bible passages often use vosotros. I watch a lot nature videos that are narrated by someone with an accent from Spain, although there really is not call for that form for the most part, but many shows are from Spain. I learned my Spanish with the primary intent of use in Mexico and with Mexicans and Mexican Americans. But who can say some day I will not have the opportunity to go to Spain. I went to Costa Rica because my daughter decided to get married there. That came without that much advance notice.
So for me, I find it important to recognize it when I see it, and understand the usage, but I will admit that I do not practice it as much, and as such I typically have a little hesitation (few seconds to think it through rather than have it flow naturally) when I use it myself, although no trouble being on the receiving end. I think having at least that much understanding is important and that completely ignoring them would be a mistake.
I had intended answering then whilst I was thinking about it, bosque composed his excellent answer. I know I do not use vosotros as effortlessly as other verb endings but that is because I do not speak Spanish enough and when I do I tend to use yo/tu/el and nosotros. Third person plural is painless plus as you will discover the third person plural of the preterite is used as a root for the imperfect subjunctive. In Mexico they use usted/ustedes a lot and in much of Latin America, the same. We recently discussed the use of vos and voseo in Latin America
See here: BBC Mundo
We watched an ad for a Bank 20 years ago where they used 3rd person but same Bank now [since the crisis] wants to be a friend and uses vosotros. In Spain they have become less formal and use tu and vosotros a lot.
Basically, most of the time it is 3rd person singular + is and with the preterite 2nd person singular + is. You also have to remember the tildes. You may as well make the effort now . There are lots of people from Spain living around the world and certainly great books and films from Spain.
I listen to several podcasts from Spain including Notes in Spanish and
I also listen to some radio and TV on rtve [some recent programmes have subtitles and transcripts]
Here is an article by someone who is very good at learning languages
The bottom line is you will get by with ignoring vosotros, but make sure you can recognise its use
The bottom line is you will get by with ignoring vosotros, but make sure you can recognise its use
This says it all.
In Spain if you don´t use vostros, you will still be perfectly understood and simply recognised as someone from the Americas.
Having answered your question in a practical way, I then saw an article by a Spanish speaker who teaches in Melbourne suggesting all speakers should learn to use vosotros. I remember on several visits to Mexico I missed not being able to use vosotros!
His article has attracted a lot of comments
Vosotros is used as "you all" in Spain. If you would like to visit Spain, and speak Spanish, you can't ignore vosotros. Otherwise, you probably won't need it. Not many people outside of Spain (Unless their from Spain
One more thing: Many written things use the vosotros form, for instance- almost every translation of the Bible. (NBLH is an exception.)
As a beginner you can set the vosotros form aside, but if you stick with Spanish you'll learn it eventually.
Great feedback. Thank you everyone.
