El trato: usted, ustedes, tú y vos
Spanish makes you choose a pronoun before you can say a single word to somebody, and that choice is the first thing a stranger learns about your manners. In the singular the decision is real: tú for the friend, the child, the person your own age, and usted for the stranger, the elder, the person behind the desk — and in Bogotá, Medellín and San José, for your own brother too. In the plural there is no decision at all, and this is the part that surprises everyone who arrives from a course written for Spain: ustedes is the only plural 'you' in Latin America, it is neither formal nor familiar, and it always takes the ellos form of the verb. On top of that sit the tools that make a request land softly — disculpe, con permiso, ¿le molestaría?, si no es molestia, a title, a diminutive — and underneath it all runs vos, the everyday tú of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Central America and much of Colombia: vos sos, vos tenés, vení, mirá. You are not going to produce vos. You do need to hear it without blinking.
Tú or usted — the choice that is still live
usted takes the third-person singular of the verb, exactly like él: usted habla, usted come, ¿cómo está usted?, ¿usted qué opina? Everything hanging off it moves along: the possessive is su — su nombre, su cuenta — the indirect object is le — le mando el correo — the direct object is lo for a man and la for a woman — Lo llamo mañana, señor, La espero acá, señora — and after a preposition it stays usted, so para usted and con usted where a friend would get para ti and contigo. The pronoun itself is normally dropped once the ending has done its work, and it comes back for emphasis or to open politely: ¿Usted qué opina, doctora? Now the map, which changes every conversation you have. In Mexico, the Caribbean, Venezuela and the Colombian coast, tú shows up within minutes and staying on usted starts to feel cold. In the interior of Colombia it runs the other way: in Bogotá, Medellín and Cali people use usted with their brothers, their oldest friends, their toddlers and their dogs, and it means closeness, not distance. In Costa Rica usted is close to universal. In Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia it holds much longer with anyone you have just met. The rule that never fails a learner: start with usted for anyone older, anyone in a uniform, anyone behind a counter and anyone whose title you would use, then let the other person open the door. The invitation is a fixed phrase — Puedes tutearme, ¿Nos tuteamos?, Tráteme de tú, or simply Con confianza — and the verb for it is tutear. Note that the traffic is often one-way, as lesson 27 flagged: the shopkeeper who has known you since you were small says tú to you while you answer her with usted, and neither of you is being rude. Nobody in this region has ever been insulted by usted.
Ustedes: one word, no temperature
This is the single biggest thing a learner has to unlearn, and unlearning it makes the language smaller. There is one plural 'you' here — ustedes — and it carries no formality whatsoever. Ustedes son mis mejores amigos and Ustedes son los nuevos vecinos use the same pronoun and the same verb, because the warm-or-distant decision that is alive in the singular simply is not made in the plural. Better still, ustedes takes the ellos form in every tense you own: ustedes hablan, ustedes comieron, ustedes van a venir, ustedes tendrían que descansar, ojalá ustedes puedan. The consequences reach down into the small words, and this is where a Spain-trained ear slips. The possessive is su and sus — su casa, sus boletos — and when that gets ambiguous the region adds de ustedes: la casa de ustedes, los papeles de ustedes. The object pronouns are los, las and les, and the reflexive is se: Los veo mañana, Las acompaño a la salida, Les mandé el correo ayer, ¿Ya se lavaron las manos?, Cuídense mucho. Commands are the -en row from lesson 25 — hablen, coman, vengan, siéntense, pásenle — for your cousins and for a boardroom alike. If a book written for Spain has shown you a separate familiar plural, with its own verb ending, its own possessive and its own object pronoun, park all of it: lesson 44 shows you what it looks like so you can read it, and explains why it never comes out of your mouth on this side of the ocean. Every paradigm in this course is five rows, not six.
Titles, and how much work they do
Latin America uses titles far more than English does, and skipping one reads as brusque where using one costs nothing. don and doña go with a FIRST name, never a surname, and they carry affectionate respect for someone older: don Hernán, doña Rosa. señor, señora and señorita go with a surname or stand alone: Buenos días, señor Ramírez. Professional titles are used as address, not just as description: licenciado and licenciada for anyone with a degree and, by courtesy, most people in an office — abbreviated Lic. — plus ingeniero and ingeniera (Ing.), arquitecto, contador, maestro for a craftsman or a musician, profe for any teacher from kindergarten to university, and doctor and doctora, which in Colombia stretches to anyone in a suit whether or not there is a diploma behind it. In an office in Mexico City you will hear Buenos días, licenciada and Gracias, ingeniero all day long. To get a waiter's attention: joven to a young man of any age, señorita, jefe, maestro, or simply ¿Me hace el favor? — and in Colombia the whole exchange is A la orden. Then the warm words strangers use on you, which are not flirtation and are not condescension: mijo and mija from an older woman, mi amor, corazón, reina, caballero, vecino and vecina at the corner store, compadre and comadre between men and women who are close. Answering a title with a title is the safest possible move: somebody calls you señorita, you call them señora, and nobody has to think about it again.
Disculpe, perdón, con permiso, lo siento
English piles four jobs onto 'sorry' and 'excuse me'; Spanish keeps them apart, and mixing them up is the most audible thing a learner does in a shop. disculpe — disculpa to a friend — opens a request to a stranger and apologizes for something small: Disculpe, ¿dónde está la salida?, Disculpe la molestia, and in Mexico Una disculpa por la demora. perdón is the instant one: you bumped somebody, you interrupted, you squeezed past. con permiso is not an apology at all — it is the phrase for passing in front of somebody, leaving a table, entering a room or ending a call, and it expects an answer: propio, adelante or pase. lo siento is real regret and does not work as attention-getting: Lo siento, pero no puedo ir, and at a funeral Lo siento mucho or Mi más sentido pésame. Say lo siento to get past somebody in a hallway and you have announced a tragedy. Intensity, low to high: perdón → disculpe → lo siento → lo siento muchísimo. Regional colour worth knowing: in Colombia ¡Qué pena! is simply 'excuse me', while in the Southern Cone the same words mean 'what a shame'. When you did not catch what somebody said, the pan-regional repair is ¿Cómo?, alongside ¿Perdón? and Mexico's ¿Mande?, which is also what a Mexican answers when their name is called; a bare ¿Qué? on its own can land brusque. And thanks has a whole shelf of answers: De nada, No hay de qué, Con gusto and Con mucho gusto, A la orden, Para servirle, No es nada.
The softening kit
Lesson 27 gave you the engine — the conditional. Here is the rest of the toolbox, in rough order of how careful you are being. por favor on anything at all. ¿Me permite? while you reach past somebody. ¿Le importa si + present — ¿Le importa si me siento acá? ¿Le molestaría + infinitive — ¿Le molestaría esperar un momento? ¿Sería tan amable de + infinitive, which is the top of the register and sounds slightly formal in a good way. ¿Me haría el favor de + infinitive, and its Colombian cousin Le voy a pedir el favor de + infinitive, which clerks use all day. Si no es molestia as an opener, Disculpe la molestia as a closer. Then the two habits that are pure Latin America. The first is the diminutive: un momentito, una preguntita, unos minutitos, tantito, ahorita, un cafecito — none of these is about size, all of them take weight off the request. The second is no más, which turns an instruction into an invitation: Pase no más, Siga no más, Dígame no más, Tome asiento no más. Colombia and much of Mexico add ¿Me regala…? — literally 'would you gift me', in practice the gentlest way to ask for anything at a counter: ¿Me regala su cédula? Refusing takes the same care as asking, because a bare No is not rude but it is bare, and the region pads it: Le agradezco, pero no puedo, Me encantaría, pero ya tengo algo, Ahorita no, gracias, Quizá otro día, and the beautifully non-committal Va a estar difícil, which means no.
Vos — read it, do not produce it
Tens of millions of people say vos where this course says tú: all of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, most of Central America, Medellín and Cali and the whole region around them, parts of Bolivia, and pockets elsewhere. It is not slang and it is not rural — it is on the news, in advertising and in school. The mechanism is small. In the present tense, drop the -r off the infinitive, add -s, and put the stress on that last syllable: hablar → hablás, comer → comés, vivir → vivís. Because the stress lands on the ending, the stem never breaks: podés, querés, tenés, venís, dormís where tú gives puedes, quieres, tienes, vienes, duermes. ser is the one to memorize: vos sos. The affirmative command is even simpler — drop the -r and accent what is left: hablá, comé, viví, vení, mirá, andá, tené, poné, decí, esperá, and with a pronoun attached decime, avisame, fijate, sentate. Everything else is ordinary Spanish, which is why this is easy to read: the past is hablaste, the imperfect hablabas, the future hablarás, the conditional hablarías, and the possessive and object pronouns stay tu, te, tuyo. Only the prepositional form changes: para vos and con vos instead of para ti and contigo. There is no plural — vos pluralizes to ustedes, like everything else. Chile does its own version with tú, heard constantly and almost never written: ¿Cachái?, tenís, soi. What you do with all this is nothing: when somebody uses vos with you, answer in tú, or in usted if that is what the country runs on, and the conversation continues without a ripple. In Argentina note only that usted is used more sparingly than elsewhere, so it can put distance where you meant respect, and that che is a vocative, roughly 'hey', not a pronoun.
Counters, phones and email
Three places where the register is fixed and you can simply learn the lines. At a counter, the person serving opens with ¿En qué le puedo servir?, ¿En qué le ayudo? or A sus órdenes, and in Colombia asks for your details with ¿Me regala su nombre? You answer with Buenos días first — greeting before business, always, and skipping it is the rudest thing on this page. On the phone the hello is regional: ¿Aló? through most of South America, ¿Bueno? in Mexico, plain ¿Sí? anywhere. Then ¿De parte de quién? to ask who is calling, ¿Con quién tengo el gusto? in a more formal office, Le paso or Se lo comunico to transfer you, and Que le vaya bien to close. In writing, open with Estimado licenciado or Estimada señora Ruiz and close with Atentamente, Saludos cordiales or Quedo atento a su respuesta — Quedo atenta if you are a woman. Finally the goodbyes, which are all elliptical subjunctives from lesson 29 with the que still attached and the main verb dropped: Que le vaya bien, Que esté bien, Que tenga buen día, Que descanse, and to a group Que les vaya bien. They are what people actually say instead of adiós, and answering one with the same words back is exactly right.
