The subject of a sentence is the person or thing which performs the action. Subject pronouns replace this person or thing. You must understand subject pronouns before you begin conjugating Spanish verbs, as the form of verbs changes for each one.

Spanish is what linguists call a "pro-drop" language, which simply means that the pronoun can be dropped. It's not necessary for comprehension, the way it is in English, because the subject of the verb is evident from the conjugated verb. "I go" can be translated by "yo voy" or simply "voy" (from the verb ir - to go).

Notes

1. Yo is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence, unlike its English counterpart I. It is pronounced differently in Argentina.
    

2. There are four words for you in Spanish.

   	singular	plural
   familiar	tú	vosotros
   formal	Ud.	Uds.

   Vosotros is used only in Spain. In Latin America, Uds. is the only plural "you," used to refer to both familiar and formal groups. The formal "yous" are used to show respect or to indicate the the person is unknown to the speaker. In Argentina, there is an additional pronoun: vos.
     

3. Since all Spanish nouns are either masculine or feminine, they use the 3rd person subject pronouns which correspond to their gender. Thus él can refer to a male (he) or a masculine noun (it) and ella can refer to a female (she) or a feminine noun (it).*
    

4. Ud. and Uds. are short for usted and ustedes, respectively, and may also be written Vd. and Vds. Note that they use the third person conjugations.
    

5. Nosotras, vosotras, and ellas means we, you, and they respectively when all of the nouns (both people and things) referred to are feminine. If there are any masculine nouns, the subject pronoun defaults to the masculine nosotros, vosotros, or ellos.

*Spanish also has a neuter subject pronoun (ello).

Spanish grammar

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