[Tango-L] Spanish

[Huck Kennedy]

On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 6:23 PM, larrynla at juno.com <larrynla at juno.com> wrote:
>
> The singular you in many Spanish dialects is usted if formal, tu if
> informal or familiar. In Rioplatense tu is replaced by vos. The verb-
> form used with vos is different than in most other Spanish dialects,
> but don't ask me how. I'm still struggling with verb forms in general.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo appears to be a fairly
comprehensive report, best one I've seen so far on the internet.

     The article mostly assumes the reader is already aware that a
second person plural form vosotros can still be found in Spain (most
countries just use ustedes for both formal and familar).  The
conjugations for the singular vos are a takeoff (with several
variations) on the vosotros form.

     At the end of the article, they claim Costa Rica uses vos.  I've
spent a lot of time on the southwest coast, and a few days in San Jose
as well, and I never heard it in either place.  What I did hear a lot
of was using usted for the familiar, even amongst family members,
which I found to be quite odd.

Huck