Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

Usted no es español, ¿verdad?

You’re not Spanish, are you?

8.2 Object pronouns

Spanish has two kinds of object pronouns:

• Unstressed pronouns: these never receive emphasis, and always appear with a
  verb.


• Stressed pronouns: these may be stressed, and often duplicate unstressed pronouns
  to achieve emphasis (see 8.3). They always follow a preposition.
  In the table in 8.2.1 a distinction is made in the third person between direct and
  indirect object. This important notion is best illustrated by looking at full nouns:


• The direct object undergoes the action of the verb, e.g. Juan in Vi a Juan‘I saw
  Juan’.


• The indirect object is, as the term suggests, more indirectly affected by the action of
  the verb, e.g. Juan in Di un libro a Juan‘I gave a book to Juan’, where un libro is
  the direct object.
  However, the distinction between the two is sometimes difficult to perceive in Spanish,
  where a is used with ‘personal’ direct object nouns (see 25.1.1.1) as well as with indirect
  object nouns. In the use of the personal pronouns too there is much variation in usage
  in the Spanish-speaking world.

8.2.1 Forms

The system which is regarded by many as the standard is given here. If you use the

forms given in this table you will not sound especially odd, but you will hear a great

deal of variation in the polite form of the second person and in the third person (even

from the same speaker!).

Unstressed pronouns Stressed pronouns

Direct object

Indirect

object

Prepositional

object

1st person sg.

2nd person sg. informal (see

below for voseo forms)

me

te

me

te

mí

ti

2nd person sg. polite lo (m.)/la (f.) le usted

3rd person sg. lo (m.)/la (f.) le él (m.)/ella (f.)

1st person pl. nos nos nosotros (m.)/

nosotras (f.)

2nd person pl. informal

(not in Latin America:

see 8.1.2)

os os vosotros (m.)/

vosotras (f.)

2nd person pl. polite los (m.)/las (f.) les ustedes

3rd person pl. los (m.)/las (f.) les ellos (m.)/ellas (f.)

Reflexive sg. and pl. (see 23 ) se se sí

PERSONAL PRONOUNS 8.2