Herramientas de la lengua
Pronombres del sujeto: Things to know
Why do you want to know this?
Understanding pronouns and how they are used in Spanish will help you build strong sentences that are easy to understand without being repetitive. Subject pronouns, specifically, will help you not be repetitive and also conjugate verbs that match who is doing the action.
1. ¿What are subject pronouns?
Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun. In the case of subject pronouns, they take the place of the nouns that are the subjects in the sentence. Ex:
- El perro corre mientras María y Juana ríen = Él corre mientras ellas ríen.
Note: Since the verb endings in Spanish generally make obvious who is the subject, they are often omitted. Ex:
- Somos vecinos
- No vivo aquí
- ¿Deseas café
¡Practiquemos!
¡Hola! A continuación tienes un ejercicio para un total de 10 puntos Debes lograr al menos 8 ¡Suerte!
2. What about “it”?
- How do you say “it” in Spanish? You don’t. You simply omit the subject pronoun altogether:
- It is beautiful = Es bonita.
- It works well = Funciona bien
- It landed late = Aterrizó tarde
¡Practiquemos!
¡Hola! A continuación tienes un ejercicio para un total de 3 puntos Debes lograr al menos 3 ¡Suerte!
3. Inclusive language
Spanish is slowly evolving to address inclusive language. For now there are no widely used subject pronouns to address non-binary people. More here.
This unit “Nouns in Spanish: Gender and Number” was created by Alegría Ribadeneira by combining original material and portions from sections about pronouns in Spanish Grammar Manual by Enrique Yépez licensed CC BY-NC-SA.
