Yo y mí

Hi all, another beginners question. I've been working through some books and I'm a bit confused about the usage of yo and mí. For example, some translations given were:

según yo, ... : according to me
hay veinte personas aquí, incluso tú y yo: there are twenty people here, including you and me
él vive al lado de mí: he lives next door to me

Is there a simple rule for when yo is used and when mí is used or can anyone point me to an article about this?

[Rusty]

Excellent question!!

Short answer:
There are six Spanish prepositions that are followed by nominative case pronouns instead of prepositional case. They are 'entre', 'excepto', 'incluso', 'menos', 'salvo' and 'según'.

I looked up two of these and found that the RAE and other dictionaries say these words can be used as an adverb, a preposition or a conjunction. That's as confusing as it gets.

Why are these six the exceptions to the rule? There are language collocations that make this sort of logic valid.

(I looked up 'according' and 'even', both valid translations for 'según' and 'incluso', and see that they are not prepositions in English.)


The last sentence you wrote clearly contains a preposition recognized in both languages. There's no question about the validity of using the prepositional case pronouns after it.

[JPablo]

*"Mí, no comprender"
This is an incorrect way to say "Yo no lo comprendo".
Rusty's answer is on point, but I think natives use these in an instinctive way... which is not always infallible.

I.e., I bet the Spanish natives may err sometimes, but overall the usage is or becomes rather obvious, when you get more and more acquainted with the language.

Para mí, resulta obvio.
Según yo, o según lo que yo pienso, no es muy complicado.
Incluso yo puedo deducirlo.
Pero incluso a mí me puede parecer difícil a veces.
Excepto yo y mi hermano, todos los demás se equivocan.
Todos lo saben menos yo.
Entre tú y yo, lo podemos llegar a dominar.

I hope the above examples may help.

[aleCcowaN]

The key fact is that I don't identify myself with mí. I am not mí. I mean, nobody thinks of him or herself as mí. Mí only relates with things that are pointing to us or affecting us, like we are the prey other people chase or the resource that actions need.

It's me ---> Soy yo (my own person)
Are you telling me ...? ---> ¿Me estás diciendo ... ?
Are you telling that to me? ---> ¿Me lo dices a mí?
Not me! ---> ¡Yo no! (my own person)
Why me, God? Why? ---> ¿Por qué yo, Dios? ¿Por qué? (my own person)
And you dare to accuse me. To accuse me! (not sure here how to say it in English) ---> Y te atreves a acusarme ¡A mí! Yo que he sido honesto hasta la estupidez.
Me neither [neither do I] ---> Yo tampoco (my own person)

borderline cases:

Come with me ---> Ven conmigo (etimologically "con con-mí")
She left without me --> Se marchó sin mí.

[Perikles]

"Yo" is usually the subject pronoun corresponding to "I" ..... but as you can see in your examples it doesn't always look like it.
Hey, it's me ---- Oye, soy yo

The object pronoun is usually "me"
I love you ---- yo te quiero (a tí)
You love me ---- tú me quieres (a mí)

"mí" is a tonic form used after prepositions like: a mí, de mí, para mí, hasta mí etc.
the exception being "with me" which has the regular form "conmigo"

Looks familiar?

[Profesoradeespañol]

Hello,
I think that one of the things that can help you are the question that you can ask.
¿A quién? a mí, a tí...
¿Para quién? para mí, para tí..
¿Por quién? por mí, por tí...
¿Hacía quién? hacía mí, hacía tí...

Pero si la pregunta que haces es ¿quién? tienes que usar yo, tu, ella...

¿Según quién? Según yo.

Hay veinte personas, ¿incluido quien? Incluidos tu y yo.

Hope it helps.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Just some spelling corrections to avoid confusing students.

Originally Posted by Profesoradeespañol

Hello,
I think that one of the things that can help you are the questions that you can ask.
¿A quién? a mí, a ti...
¿Para quién? para mí, para ti..
¿Por quién? por mí, por ti...
¿Hacia quién? hacia mí, hacia ti...

Pero si la pregunta que haces es ¿quién? tienes que usar yo, tú, ella...

¿Según quién? Según yo.

Hay veinte personas, ¿incluido quien? Incluidos tú y yo.

Hope it helps.