As in English, we use Subject Pronouns (I, you, he…) in Spanish to refer to the subject (person, animal, thing or place) that carries out an action (expressed by a verb).

Subject-verb agreement is very important in Spanish, since, unlike English, we conjugate the verb differently depending on the person doing the action. The biggest difference between Spanish and English pronouns is the fact that “it” doesn’t exist in Spanish.  Some differences have to do with gender coordination, for instance, “we” becomes “nosotros” (masculine) and “nosotras” (feminine) and “they” becomes “ellos” (masculine) and “ellas” (feminine).  Another difference is that there is a separate subject pronoun for the plural you, or “ustedes”. 

Spanish also has very clear informal and formal speech. This is the difference between using “tú” and “usted”.

Note: this site is intended for people learning Latin American Spanish, so if you were in Spain, there would be another set of subject pronouns (equivalent to “ustedes” in Latin America), “vosotros” and “vosotras”, meaning the plural “you”.   

So how do we refer to things, places, animals or situations if the pronoun “it” doesn’t exist in Spanish?

Simple:

1. In Spanish, we have neuter pronouns like “ello” and “eso” (that) that we sometimes use to talk about general things, conditions, especially those that don’t have a name. We also use the pronouns “lo” (masculine) and ”la” (feminine) as the direct object of the verb or simply the articles “el” and “la” (the) if we talk about specific masculine or feminine nouns in Spanish:

Recall that all things in Spanish are either masculine or feminine, so whenever we refer to a specific thing, it has to take a masculine (el, lo, etc.) or feminine (ella, la, etc.) form.

2. We simply omit it, especially when we talk about more abstract situations or ideas:

Note: it’s perfectly correct (and very common) to omit the subject pronoun  since the conjugated verb already indicates who we are talking about. This is especially common with the pronouns “yo”, “tú” and “nosotros” or “nosotras” because there can never be any confusion due to their unique conjugation ending. See these examples:

So only use the subject pronoun if there might be some confusion as to who is doing the action (is it he, she, or it?).  Or when you want to emphasize who is doing the action.

Test out your knowledge on subject pronouns in Spanish with the quizzes below. 

In this lesson, we covered the subject pronouns in Spanish (Yo, Tú, Él, Ella, Usted, Nosotros, Nosotras, Ustedes, Ellos, and Ellas).  Remember there are some important differences between English and Spanish when it comes to subject pronouns. The pronoun “it” doesn’t exist in Spanish, some pronouns have masculine/feminine forms (nosotras, ellas, etc.), and the plural “you” has its own form (ustedes).  Now that you’re familiar with subject pronouns, take a look at the post we did on “Tú” vs. “Usted”, or move on to “Verb Conjugations”.