English manages with one word for “you”. Spanish has four, five in parts of Latin America, and choosing between them is the first thing a native speaker notices about your Spanish, before your accent and long before your grammar. Get it right and you sound courteous and at ease; get it wrong and you sound either stiff or over-familiar, sometimes to someone whose good opinion you need.
This guide sets out what the forms are, how to choose between them, how the choice changes the rest of the sentence, and how formal Spanish works in the situations our students meet most: meetings, emails and first conversations with clients.
The four words for “you”
- Tú: one person, informal. ¿Cómo estás?
- Usted: one person, formal. ¿Cómo está?
- Vosotros (vosotras): several people, informal, Spain only. ¿Cómo estáis?
- Ustedes: several people, formal in Spain and the only plural in Latin America. ¿Cómo están?
Usted takes the same verb forms as él and ella, which puzzles beginners until they learn where it comes from: it is a worn-down vuestra merced, “your grace”, and one addressed one’s grace in the third person. The habit survives, so usted habla looks exactly like ella habla.
Tú or usted: how to choose
Tú is for family, friends, children, and anyone who has invited you to use it. In most of Spain it also covers colleagues, neighbours and people of your own age in a shop or a bar.
Usted is for strangers older than you, officials, clients, anyone with a title, and anyone you would address as Mr or Mrs in English. In most of Latin America it also covers shop assistants, waiters, taxi drivers and colleagues you have only just met.
When in doubt, usted. Being a little too formal costs nothing, since the other person simply invites you to relax; being too informal can read as presumptuous, and nobody will tell you. The invitation comes as puedes tutearme or ¿nos tuteamos?, and the verb tutear, to call someone tú, exists precisely because the moment matters. Once invited, accept: staying with usted after that seems distant.
Age and hierarchy set the level more than the setting does. A Madrid waiter of thirty will say tú to a customer of thirty and usted to one of seventy; a junior lawyer in Bogotá will say usted to a partner for years.
Spain and Latin America draw the line differently
Vosotros is used only in Spain, and not even all of it: the Canary Islands and parts of western Andalusia say ustedes to everyone, as the whole of Latin America does. A learner who is heading for Mexico or Argentina can therefore leave the vosotros endings until later and use ustedes for any group, formal or not.
Latin America adds a fifth word. Vos replaces tú in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay and across much of Central America, with its own verb forms: vos hablás, vos tenés, vos sos. It is the everyday informal “you” of Buenos Aires, and part of what makes Argentinian Spanish sound the way it does.
The formal form is not the same distance everywhere either. In Bogotá, usted is used between friends, between parents and children and even between couples, so in Colombian Spanish it can be warm rather than distant. In Madrid the same word marks a clear line. The fuller map, country by country, is in our guide to the accents of Spain and Latin America.
What changes with the form of address
The choice is not one word; it runs through the sentence.
- The verb, in every tense: ¿tienes tiempo? becomes ¿tiene tiempo?, ¿vendrás? becomes ¿vendrá?
- Your: tu and tus with tú, su and sus with usted (the same words as his, her and their, so context does the work), vuestro and vuestra with vosotros.
- Object pronouns: te escribo mañana, I will write to you tomorrow, becomes le escribo mañana; os for vosotros and les for ustedes.
- Commands: the usted command uses the subjunctive form, so habla becomes hable, ven becomes venga, siéntate becomes siéntese. The everyday courtesies are all usted commands: pase, come in; disculpe, excuse me; oiga, to get someone’s attention; dígame, the way Spaniards answer the phone.
The pairs are worth learning as pairs, perdona and perdone, mira and mire, ¿qué tal estás? and ¿qué tal está?, so that switching register is a matter of habit rather than calculation.
Formal Spanish beyond usted
Register in Spanish is also a matter of mood and vocabulary. The conditional softens a request: ¿podría enviarme el informe?, could you send me the report, where ¿puede…? is correct but brisker. Quisiera and me gustaría do the same job for “I would like”, and are what you use in a restaurant, a hotel or a meeting rather than quiero.
Titles matter more than in English. Señor and señora with the surname are the neutral formal address; don and doña with the first name are older and respectful, and still common for senior people. Mexico and several other countries use professional titles as a form of address, licenciado, ingeniero, doctor, and in Colombia doctor is extended as a courtesy to professionals of every kind, doctorate or not.
In writing, a formal email opens with Estimado señor García or Estimada señora López (querido is for friends), states its business with le escribo para…, and closes with un cordial saludo, saludos cordiales or, more formally, atentamente. Quedo a su disposición, I remain at your disposal, and quedo a la espera de su respuesta, I look forward to your reply, are the stock phrases that make an email read as native.
Formal Spanish at work
The professionals we teach meet both cultures, often in the same week. In Spain, most offices run on tú, including with the boss, and a client may well move to tú in the first meeting; the polite move is to open with usted and follow their lead. In Mexico City, Bogotá or Lima, usted stays in place with clients and senior colleagues for much longer, and the same follow-their-lead rule keeps you right.
Because the choice affects verbs, pronouns and set phrases, the register has to be practised, not just understood. That is why business Spanish training rehearses the actual meeting, the actual phone call and the actual email, in the register of the country you deal with, so that the forms come out right under pressure.
Questions learners ask
Is usted cold? No. It is respectful, and in much of Latin America it is the ordinary way to speak to people you like. Only in a relationship that has already moved to tú does going back to usted feel distant.
Do I need vosotros? Only if you will use your Spanish in Spain. Learn to recognise it, since you will hear it in Spanish films and series, and use ustedes everywhere in Latin America.
What if I get it wrong? Native speakers forgive a learner easily. Too formal is the safer mistake, and a quick perdón and a switch is all that is needed if someone corrects you.
How do I know when to switch to tú? When you are invited, or when the other person starts using tú with you. Until then, stay with usted.
Learning the register
The forms of address are learned fastest in conversation with a native speaker, because every exchange is a decision and every decision is corrected on the spot. In private Spanish lessons the tutor can play the client, the colleague and the friend in turn, so that tú and usted become instinct before you need them. From there, the next step is sounding natural in Spanish, which is the register between the two.
Getting tú and usted right matters most with clients and colleagues. Corporate Spanish training builds the register your work needs.
Read next: How to sound more natural in Spanish (without sounding like a textbook) · Latin America: A world of opportunities for English speakers · Spanish expressions that don’t translate into English (and what they really mean)