Voseo consists of the use of “you” as a pronoun.
Voseo is the act and consequence of voseo . This verb , for its part, refers to addressing an interlocutor by treating them as “vos” , instead of “tú” or “usted” .
Voseo, therefore, is a phenomenon that is part of the Spanish language and consists of the use of “vos” as a pronoun , giving rise to specific conjugations of verbs . This linguistic form is used in various Latin American countries in informal and family contexts.
Voseo example
We can understand how voseo works if we compare the different ways of addressing a person. A young Argentine may ask a friend: “Do you know how to get to the stadium?” . In this case, it appeals to voseo and, therefore, the verb saber is conjugated as “you know” in the second person singular of the Present tense of the Indicative mood.
If the young man were Venezuelan, he would possibly have addressed his interlocutor in the following way: “Do you know how to get to the stadium?” . As you can see, the pronoun “vos” is replaced by “you” , while saber is now conjugated as “you know” . A third option would be the following: “Do you know how to get to the stadium?” . This more formal modality uses the pronoun “you” and the conjugation “know” .
The voseo is accompanied by a particular conjugation of the verbs.
Verb conjugations
If we stop for a moment at the conjugation of the verb “ know” , we will notice that it can take two forms in the second person singular, depending on whether “ vos” or “ tú” is used. Although in the case of this particular verb the difference centers on the stress (with the pronoun " vos" the verb becomes acute, since when using " tú" it is a serious word), there are other cases in which The changes are really drastic, as happens with the verb “ go” .
First of all, it is worth remembering that the verb “ go” belongs to the group of irregulars , those that deviate from the conjugation paradigm to which they should belong, since they undergo changes in their ending and in their root that are out of the ordinary. The verb “ go” has “ depart” as a model; Just by observing the conjugation of both in the Present tense of the Indicative mood we will notice drastic differences: “I part, parts, part, we part, partís, parten” ; “I'm going, you're going, you're going, we're going, you're going, you're going.”
Needless to say, “ go” is an especially short verb, and it is logical that having only two letters it cannot follow the steps of “ depart” ; In fact, the entire word coincides perfectly with the ending of the model verb in question, so if it were regular we would get “o, es, e,imos, is, en” .
With the verb “ go” , the voseo can be seen in the Imperative mood, which is conjugated as follows: “tú ve / vos go, go, go, go” . As can be seen, the irregularity of this verb increases even more when the voseo comes into play, since it crosses its own borders to enter the terrain of “ andar” , a regular verb in which the differences between the “ vos” and the “ you” again revolve around the use of an accent.
Other types of changes can be noticed in the verb “ acertar” , both in the Present tense of the Indicative mode and in the Imperative mode: “aciertas / acertás” , “acierta / acertá” , for tú and vos, respectively. It is important to note that it is not enough to use the appropriate variation when using voseo or tuteo, but there are various nuances in intonation that outweigh the spelling itself.
The towns and the voseo
On the American continent, we can find different relationships between people and voseo.
In some nations , voseo is very widespread: the pronoun “vos” is always used in the family and informal environment and “usted” in other contexts. In other areas, however, there is no voseo since “vos” is not used, but “tú” is used. There are also regions where both “vos” and “tú” and “usted” are used according to the context.