Gringo Lingo, Spanish Grammar Tips

Hey you! Tu vs. vos

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By | February 1, 2010

How and when to use “Vos” in Argentina and other countries that have “Voseo”. The reign of “tu” ends here!

English speakers have it easy. When we speak directly to anyone, we just have one word to worry about: “You.”

In Spanish, you have to make the distinction between whether to use , vos, or usted. To make matters worse, each have their own set of conjugations, too.

Luckily, you generally have to worry about only two of three, as and vos are both the informal and usted is formal. Some countries use , some use vos, and some use both. Generally speaking most of Argentina, Uruguay and the major cities in Colombia use vos.

Our rule of thumb is that if you’d call someone by their first name in English, you can use or vos in Spanish. If you’d normally add a Mr., Mrs., etc. then you use usted. Here are a few other types of people you’d used usted with:

* Someone older than you
* Someone you don’t know well
* An authority figure
* Anyone to whom you wish to show respect

and vos are used for anyone who you are more familiar with. A friend, colleague, relative, child, etc.

Here in Argentina, we use vos for everyone – the word usted is seen in ads and sometimes heard when someone is referring to a much older person. It’s not like Mexico, for example, where the distinction between and usted is much clearer and both are used often.

Conjugating verbs for vos

The easiest and most universal trick to conjugating for vos is to ignore any changes in the verb that may take place (for irregulars) for tu and add an s in place of the r. Examples:

Querer – Vos queres
Tener – Vos tenes
Jugar – Vos jugas
Coger – Vos coges *Special note for coger…it does not have the same meaning here in Argentina as it does elsewhere. See here for more Argentine slang. NSFW

If you’re ever in doubt about whether to use the formal or informal, stick with the formal. No one will ever get angry at you for addressing them formally, they’ll just think you’re ridiculously polite. And seeing as how you’re a Gringo in a Spanish-speaking place, you’ll probably be used to being ridiculous, anyway.

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