This is the thirty-ninth lesson in our beginner level Spanish course and we will look at Different types of Spanish Pronouns.
In our previous lesson we discussed some useful Spanish grammar terminology: verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and also pronouns. We have already learned that pronouns are words used to replace nouns in a sentence, but you may not be aware that there are various different types of Spanish Pronouns.
We can distinguish 6 different types of Spanish Pronouns: Pronombres Personales (Personal Pronouns), Pronombres Relativos (Relative Pronouns), Pronombres Posesivos (Possessive Pronouns), Pronombres Reflexivos (Reflexive Pronouns), Pronombre Interrogativos (Interrogative Pronouns), and Pronombres Demostrativos (Demonstrative Pronouns).
Let’s take a look at each of these categories of Spanish Pronouns.
1. Pronombres Personales (Personal Pronouns):
Personal Pronouns include Subject Pronouns which refer to the subject of a sentence (yo, tú, él/ella, nosotros/as, vosotros/as, ellos/ellas: I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they).
Direct Object Pronouns which refer to a noun directly affected by the action of a verb (me, te, lo/la, nos, os, los/las: me, you, him/her/it, us, you, them).
Indirect Object Pronouns which refer to whom or for whom something is done (me, te, le, nos, os, les: me, you, him/her/it, us, you, them).
Prepositional Personal Pronouns which follow prepositions (mí, ti, él/ella, nosotros/as, vosotros/as, ellos/ellas: me, you, him/her/it, us, you, them).
2. Pronombres Relativos (Relative Pronouns):
Relative Pronouns add extra information to something previously mentioned. This could be a person or thing (el que, la que, los que, las que, el cual, la cual, los cuales, las cuales: who, which, that) or possession (cuyo/cuya, cuyos/cuyas: whose).
3. Pronombres Posesivos (Possessive Pronouns):
Possessive Pronouns are used in place of a noun and a possessive adjective (mío/mía, míos/mías, tuyo/tuya, tuyos/tuyas, suyo/suya, suyos/suyas, nuestro/nuestra, nuestros/nuestras, vuestro/vuestra, vuestros/vuestras: mine, your, yours, his/hers/its/theirs, our, ours, your, yours).
4. Pronombres Reflexivos (Reflexive Pronouns):
Reflexive Pronouns are used with Reflexive Verbs to indicate that someone or something is performing an action on or for itself (me, te, se, nos, os, se: me, you, him/her/it, us, you, them).
5. Pronombre Interrogativos (Interrogative Pronouns):
Interrogative Pronouns are used to ask questions about a thing or person whose identity is unknown (¿quién?, ¿quiénes?, ¿qué?, ¿cuál?, ¿cuáles?: who? what?, which?).
6. Pronombres Demostrativos (Demonstrative Pronouns):
Demonstrative Pronouns refer to a previously mentioned noun and are used to indicate the distance of something or someone in respect to another thing or person (este/esta, ese/esa, aquel/aquella, estos/estas, esos/esas, aquellos/aquellas: this, that, that over there, these, those, those over there).
As you can see there are a considerable number of different types of Spanish Pronouns. Don’t worry, you don’t have to understand and remember them all right away. This is just an introduction to Pronouns to help familiarise you with the terminology. In our next lesson we will look at some example sentences using these different types of Spanish Pronouns and this will make things much clearer.
