Yo

[estoy]

Hello,
I have just started studying Spanish (for about 2 weeks).My main foreign language is English (I've been speaking English for a long time). I really find it difficult to associate the pronoun 'yo' with 'I'. Whenever someone starts a sentence with 'yo' or I read a sentence with 'yo'; it feels like 'you' to me. I know the personal pronouns 'yo', 'tu' etc. are usually omitted but still I really don't know how to over come this situation. Has anyone else had this problem before? What would you advise in order to internalize this pronoun? Thank you.

[Rusty]

Welcome to the forums!

I associate words when learning, and it sounds like you do, too. Word association is a great way to learn.
For some Spanish learners who are native American English speakers, the problem with 'yo' may be that there is a colloquial greeting, spelled exactly the same way (the Spanish pronunciation is NOT the same, however).

As you mentioned, it isn't necessary to use the subject pronoun 'yo' (or the second person familiar subject pronoun 'tú'). This is because the verb's ending tells you the same information. But this is NOT always the case.

I never had the same problem as you, associating 'yo' with 'you', so can't offer any help except to say that you can make another association. The 'oo' sound in 'you' happens to exactly match the sound of the Spanish vowel 'u', which occurs in 'tú' and 'usted' (the subject pronouns that do mean 'you').

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I agree with Rusty.


Also, practice.
When I was learning German, I used "wo" as if it were "who" and "wer" as "where".

It's just a matter of practice. The more you make sentences with the difficult words, the more familiar they'll become. Write a lot, speak a lot, read a lot.
A conjugation manual is essential to me as a learner. Try this one: Conjugación Verbal de la Lengua Española

[wrholt]

Yep, confusion can happen early in learning the language, but in my experience that goes away with time. I already knew Spanish fluently when I started studying Mandarin Chinese, only to discover that the Mandarin word for "I" is pronounced "wo", and then I found myself occasionally saying "wo" instead of "yo" when speaking Spanish. That did eventually stop, but it was frustrating until then!

[estoy]

Thank you Rusty,
I wasn't sure if someone would take my question seriously and reply. It may seem an unimportant issue to some but it is frustrating.
As you mentioned, 'tu' and 'you' sound similar so I am quite happy with 'tu'

[estoy]

Thank you for your reply Angelica,
You are right, time and practice will help I guess. Thank you for the link as well, I will check it out. Luckily, I happen to have a friend whose Spanish level is B2. I've already started showering her with messages using every phrase I learn in Spanish

[estoy]

Thank you wrholt for your reply,
When I was younger, I started to learn German. Then I met a German couple and asked them this question: "Was is your arbeit?" Well, they were nice people and replied me anyway..Languages do overlap sometimes.. I hope I can overcome this issue soon.

[poli]

In many languages the letter Y plays a part time job as a stand-in for the letter I. In fact the Spanish word for the letter Y is I griega. So, if in your head you think io instead of yo, you will see a closer cognate to
English.

[Tomisimo]

Another way to help associate things is to learn other related vocabulary words. For example, look up "yo" in the dictionary and see what else is there. Used as a noun, what do you think "yo" means?