Voseo

[laepelba]

I would like to start a thread about voseo. It refers to an alternate form of the second person singular and is used in certain countries in Latin America to varying extents. I am going to be spending about 6 weeks this summer in the Rio de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay where vos is used almost exclusively. I want to get a bit of a jump start on the usage.

Here is an article from Wikipedia about the use of voseo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo

My concerns are about the differing approach to conjugating the verbs that are used with "vos". I spent more hours than I should have trying to chase down the "vos" conjugation for "ir" (because RAE didn't have it listed like it does with most other verbs), only to find out that, for "ir", the tú and vos conjugations are the same: "vas". (Sigh...)

I know that this has come up here and there throughout Tomisimo discussions. I'd like to commit this one particular thread to the topic. Any comments or discussion on the use of the "voseo" in different countries, or the grammatic constructions would be welcome!

Thanks!!

[pjt33]

Hay un capítulo bastante detallado en el Diccionario panhispánico de dudas.

http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=voseo

[ookami]

Originally Posted by laepelba

I would like to start a thread about voseo. It refers to an alternate form of the first second person singular and is used in certain countries in Latin America to varying extents.

It's a really good idea laepelba Do you have any special doubt to start with?
Here I've found a webpage to practice our voseo after reading some theory:
voseospanish
It seems quite good from what I've seen.

[laepelba]

Thanks for the correction (eek!) and the links - VERY valuable.

I have a funny story that just happened in my class. Most of my Latin American students are Salvadoran or Honduran. One of the kids was calling across the room to another: "Y vos!? Y vos!?" And when I looked up at him (with that "teacher look"), he immediately got very flustered and insisted that he wasn't talking to me and got very defensive because he didn't want to insult me. Then he asked me if I know what "vos" means, and when I said "tu", he says "no, it means like your 'voice'" and all the kids laughed.

It just underscores to me the differences in use of "vos" in different countries.

[ookami]

I think he was mocking you. He said "vos"(tú) and when you said the meaning, he changed it to "voz"(voice). This two words in latin american countries sounds in the same way.

[laepelba]

Yes, I know he was mocking me ... he said it with a smile, and I knew exactly what he meant. It's late enough in the school year that I can joke with my students and they with me ... it was just funny to me given that "voseo" has REALLY been on my mind a LOT lately.......

[laepelba]

Well, my previous post was made before my trip to Argentina & Uruguay, and now I'm home.

Although before I left the US, my professor (a Spaniard) told us that there is a standard academic Spanish that is used in all universities in the Spanish-speaking world (and thus not to worry about voseo), as it turns out, they DID teach us to use vos. It was actually not so difficult. The verb conjugations are easier (there aren't as many irregulars) than those for tú. It's just a matter of remembering to use tú when speaking with people from other Spanish-speaking countries (most of the hispano hablantes in this part of the country are not from Argentina or Uruguay...)

A note on a comment made in another thread about the use of vos in Uruguay. I specifically looked into this. My friends who live in Montevideo use only vos. One of these friends was telling me about her young nephew who watches too much television. She said that one of the things that bothers her most about his television watching is that he is picking up speaking habits that are not like "the way we speak". And her first example was that he says tú and not vos. It really upsets her to think that he's not speaking like someone from Montevideo...

But when I was in Rivera (which is out in the countryside about 500 km away from Montevideo, and is on the border of Brazil) I asked my friend there about using vos, and she said that most people who are from Rivera do not use vos. Of course, they have a mix of Portuguese and Spanish (they have a name for it ... I think it's something like Portuñol ... reminiscent of what we call Spanglish) which is a different issue all together. But the only people in the area of Rivera (and maybe other rural parts of Uruguay?) who use vos are those people who have moved there from Montevideo or Argentina...

Here are a few pics that I snapped in Argentina that use vos in their signage/advertising. The first two are obviously for iPhone and Burger King. The last is from my favorite cafe in Buenos Aires, Cafe Martinez.




Now I've got myself going. The moderators will probably be all over these back-to-back-to-back posts ... sorry!

Anyway - here are more links about the use of voseo:
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/wksp/voseo/voseo.htm
http://eldesaguaderorevista.blogspot...-el-tuteo.html
http://www.larousse.com.ar/entretene...erse-c12.shtml
http://www.cortland.edu/flteach/wksp...elvoseo-TM.htm

And some images I've found online. (Although I didn't see it myself, they say that sometimes in Uruguay, tú is used as the pronoun with the verb conjugated for vos...)


And some more images...

[HomoVulgaris]

¡Muchas gracias por tu relato muy interesante, Laepelba!

Después de leerlo, encontré un deber de aprender más la voseo parte
del español.

[CrOtALiTo]

Always I have thought that in Argentine speaks very weir.


Vos.

Querés

Sos.

Those words are very strong here in México.

[JPablo]

Pero vos (CrOtALiTo) lo podés entender... ¿verdad, pibe?
Ookami nos puede corregir... pero creo que no es muy difícil...

Yo tenía varios amigos y amigas argentinas (en Barcelona)... y una vez que vos empezás a practicar, lo podés hacer sin problemas... che.

(¿Sabés que en Nicaragua y otros países también usan el voseo?)