Personal Pronouns: Subject and Object Pronouns

As in the English language, in Spanish, it is possible to replace a subject of the sentence that has already been mentioned with a personal pronoun. In this way, one avoids repetitions.

Rule 1: Each person (first, second and third person singular and plural) in Spanish has different pronouns that can replace a subject or an object. The third person singular and all persons in the plural sometimes have both a feminine and a masculine form.

The Spanish Subject Pronouns

As you can see, there is no neutral third person singular in Spanish, like "it" in English. The nouns are only differentiated into masculine or feminine genus.

Rule 2: Subject pronouns can replace the subject of the sentence and are usually learned along with verb conjugations.

Rule 3: In Spanish, it is common to omit the subject pronouns, since the verb clearly points to the respective subject through its conjugation. However, the subject must have already appeared in the context.

The Spanish Object Pronouns

Rule 4: In Spanish, we distinguish between direct and indirect pronouns which can replace objects in the sentence. These objects can be either persons or things.

Rule 5: The use of object pronouns depends on the type of verb. Some verbs require an object or a person.

Direct Object

Without the "something", the sentence does not seem complete. It is an object that can be replaced by a direct object pronoun. There are also verbs that can require both, a person and an object.

Indirect Object

In this case, the "something" is a direct object pronoun and the "someone" is an indirect object pronoun. If two objects appear in the sentence, the indirect object in the sentence can usually be identified by an "a" that comes before people.

"The kiss" (el beso) is thus the direct object and "Maria" is the indirect object. We can replace both with a pronoun.

Rule 6: When both objects are replaced by pronouns, as in the last case, the indirect object pronoun le/les is replaced by "se" and placed before the direct object.