Spanish Pronouns And Their Types Explained

Spanish pronouns (pronombres) are small words that we use in place of nouns.

Their primary purpose is to help you express an idea in a sentence or in the spoken form without repeating the noun.

Here’s an example:

Here’s the same sentence using a pronoun in place of the proper noun:

Main types of Spanish pronouns

There are a few main types of Spanish pronouns that you need to learn.

Some of the main ones are:

• Spanish personal pronouns
• Spanish reflexive pronouns
• Spanish direct pronouns
• Spanish indirect pronouns
• Spanish relative pronouns

I’ll cover each of these types below.

Spanish personal pronouns

I already gave you an example of the food that Juan likes to eat.

I mentioned that his name (the sustantivo) can be replaced with the small word él.

That small word él is one example of a Spanish personal pronoun — it replaces the noun.

Here’s the complete set of Spanish personal pronouns for you:

There are different Spanish personal pronouns for each subject of a sentence.

There are also masculine and feminine personal pronouns that translate to ‘he’ and ‘she’.

The only concept that differs from English pronouns is that the Spanish pronoun for ‘we’ and ‘they’ both have masculine and feminine versions.

In English we would simply say ‘we eat banana bread’, but in Spanish, if the subjects were all women, they would say nosotras comemos pan de plátano.

Usage

Using Spanish personal pronouns is simple.

You just need to substitute the noun for the pronoun.

If you wanted to say ‘María, Sofía and Sara went to the cinema and didn’t eat popcorn’, you could simply say:

Instead of listing every name of the subjects in the original sentence, I’ve just substituted the names with ellas.

This is because all three subjects are female.

If Juan, Jaime and Jacobo didn’t eat palomitas, we would use ellos.

The same thing applies for all names in Spanish.

They can be substituted with the relevant Spanish personal pronoun that we have featured in the above table.

Spanish reflexive pronouns

Let’s look at Spanish reflexive pronouns and how they work.

Take a look at the Spanish reflexive pronouns to start with, which you will find just below.

Here are the six Spanish reflexive pronouns:

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When should we use a Spanish reflexive pronoun?

We use Spanish reflexive pronouns when a person or group of people carry out a reflexive action.

Here’s an example in English: She looked at herself in the mirror and brushed her hair.

In this example, the reflexive pronoun is ‘herself’.

How would we say this in Spanish?

Take a look at the Spanish version of this:

Ella se miró en el espejo y se peinó el pelo.

Here, the reflexive pronoun se means ‘herself’.

Where do we place a Spanish reflexive pronoun in a sentence?

When we use a Spanish reflexive pronoun, keep in mind that it should be placed after the Spanish personal pronoun and before the verb.

Here are a few examples of this:

Just to drive the point home, in all of these instances, the reflexive pronoun comes after the personal pronoun and the verb comes after the reflexive pronoun.

Note that Spanish reflexive actions are sometimes described differently compared with their English counterparts.

So, even though ‘I brush my hair’ doesn’t technically contain a reflexive pronoun, the Spanish version does: yo me peino el pelo.

Spanish direct and indirect pronouns

There are another two classes of Spanish pronouns that you’ve got to be aware of — these are direct and indirect pronouns.

I’ll talk about the direct pronouns first and then move on to the indirect ones in the section after the next one.

Direct Spanish pronouns

The table just below contains the direct Spanish pronouns that you need to know.

Have a look at the full list:

When are direct pronouns used in Spanish?

Direct pronouns are used to demonstrate who the direct object of the sentence is.

In other words, they stand in place of the direct object — which is the thing or individual that receives the action of the verb.

Direct pronoun placement in Spanish

Always keep in mind that direct pronouns are positioned before the verb.

For example:

Here, the direct pronoun lo comes before the conjugated verb viste.

However, there are situations where, if the imperative tense is used, the direct pronoun joins the verb and combines to form an instruction.

For example:

In this case, the direct pronoun me, tags onto the verb seguir to form a verb in the imperative tense sígueme.

Indirect Spanish pronouns

In the following table you will find the indirect Spanish pronouns.

Here they are:

Though you might think these indirect Spanish pronouns are practically the same as the direct pronouns, it’s important to understand how their uses differ.

Indirect pronoun usage

Whereas direct pronouns are used in place of the direct object, indirect pronouns in Spanish replace indirect objects in a sentence.

Now, you’re going to need to understand what an indirect object is to use these pronouns correctly.

An indirect object is a subject of a sentence that receives an action that is done to or for them.

You can identify who or what the indirect object of the sentence is by converting the sentence into a question and then answering the question.

This might seem confusing, so here is an example in English:

She gave me a pen.

If you wanted to know who the indirect object was for this sentence, simply ask:

Who did she give the pen to? (To me)

And there’s your answer — the indirect object is me.

Now let’s look at an example in Spanish.

In this case, the indirect Spanish pronoun would be les, which replaces the names of all the individual people he gave the pens to.

Relative Spanish pronouns

Finally - relative Spanish pronouns.

The table below contains the Spanish relative pronouns to keep in mind:

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What’s the purpose of relative Spanish pronouns?

Spanish relative pronouns serve the purpose of linking two clauses that are originally in two separate sentences together.

So, in English, if you painted a beautiful picture yesterday with watercolours, one way of saying this would be: I painted a beautiful picture. I painted it yesterday. I used watercolours.

But the alternative, more fluid way of saying this would be:

For the beautiful picture that I painted yesterday, I used watercolours.

It’s that little word ‘that’ which has the power to make two sentences sound more natural.

Que

We use que in Spanish as a relative pronoun to join two clauses together.

As we stated in the above table, que can mean ‘which’, ‘that’ or ‘who’.

Here are a few examples of que being used as a relative pronoun.

Original sentences: Las ovejas viven en el campo. Las ovejas están comiendo la hierba.

Original sentences: El tráfico pasa por aquí. El tráfico va muy lento.

Original sentences: Los animales duermen allí. Los animales son muy lindos.

As you can see, the relative pronoun que is a useful word.

Without it, these sentences would be expressed in a clumsy way and sound as though the speaker was rambling.

Keep in mind that you can use que with or without commas for clauses that are relative.

When to use el cual in Spanish

The Spanish relative pronoun el cual is used in a similar way to the pronoun que.

You’ll typically hear it in formal dialogues and see it in formal texts.

El cual has different forms depending on who is being described. There are masculine, feminine and plural forms, which include la cual, los cuales and las cuales.

Here are a couple of examples of el cual being used:

When to use quien

Quien is always used when referring to people.

You can substitute el que for quien in cases where a preposition features in the sentence before quien. You can also use quien as a substitute for que in cases where the sentence doesn’t feature a preposition.

Take a look at some of the following examples to see the difference between these usages:

When to use cuyo/a

The first thing to know about the relative pronoun cuyo is that it is used in formal situations.

It’s unlikely that you’ll hear this one in dialogues with your friends.

The second thing to be aware of is that cuyo has many different forms.

There is a masculine and feminine form (cuyo and cuya), and there are plural forms for each of these (cuyos and cuyas).

The form you select has to complement the noun that comes after it.

Here’s an example of cuyo being used:

So, notice that the modified version of cuyo complements all the nouns that follow it. El café is complemented by the masculine singular version cuyo. Las gafas is complemented by the feminine plural version cuyas.

And los libros is complemented by the masculine plural version cuyos.

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We all learn differently.

For this reason, it’s not enough for you to have a look at the examples and tables of pronouns I’ve included in this list and consider it finished.

You’ll need to hear them being spoken in conversation and natural contexts repeatedly.

And just like verb conjugation, understanding the forms of these Spanish pronouns is crucial, so you should practice Spanish exercises to understand them better.

Make use of various Spanish resources and courses to help you understand and listen to formal and informal dialogues to develop your knowledge.

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