You will learn in this lesson: Spanish pronouns, subject and possessive pronouns, reflexive, indefinite, and relative pronouns, interrogative, demonstrative, prepositional, and indirect object pronouns.

Spanish Grammar

Spanish Phrases

Nouns

Adverbs

Adjectives

Definite & Indefinite Articles

Irregular Verbs

Regular Verbs

Irregular Verbs (table)

Pronouns

Prepositions

Tenses

Moods

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Direct & Indirect Object

Ser vs. Estar, Tener vs. Hay

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Most Used Words (4000 words)

Most Used Words (D-H)

Most Used Words (I-O)

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Spanish Phrases (A-G)

Spanish Phrases (H-Z)

Animals, School

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Verbs List

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Grammar, Prepositions

Time, Body Parts

Adjectives, Reflexive Verbs

A Pronoun in Spanish as well as in English is like a shortcut to refer to a noun, a word that stands for or represents a noun or noun phrase, a pronoun is identified only in the context of the sentence in which they are used. So you must have a prior idea about who "he or she" "él or ella" is. In English we find "me, her, what, that, his", In Spanish they're used pretty much the same way, the main difference is that in Spanish most pronouns have a gender, masculine or feminine and rarely neuter to unknown objects or ideas.

Types of pronouns include personal pronouns (refer to the persons speaking, the persons spoken to, or the persons or things spoken about), indefinite pronouns, relative pronouns (connect parts of sentences) and reciprocal or reflexive pronouns (in which the object of a verb is being acted on by verb's subject).

This table below shows examples of all pronouns categories in Spanish:

Subject pronouns:

Subject pronouns replace the subject of the sentence, they're very easy to use, and this is a complete list of them with their English equivalent:

Spanish Possessive Pronouns:

Possessive pronouns refer to something owned or possessed by someone. Usually preceded by el/la/los/las, used the same way in both languages:

Mine= el mío / la mía /los míos / las mías.

Yours (familiar) = el tuyo / la tuya /los tuyos / las tuyas.

Yours (formal), his, hers= el suyo / la suya /los suyos / las suyas.

Ours= el nuestro / la nuestra/ los nuestros / las nuestras.

Yours (familiar) = el vuestro / la vuestra / los vuestros / las vuestras.

Yours (formal), theirs= el suyo / la suya /los suyos / las suyas

Below, are examples of pronoun adjectives, compare them to the possessive pronoun shown on the table above,

mi(s)= my, mi coche (my car) mis amigas (my friends), tu(s)= your (singular) tu hermano (your brother) tus amigos, su(s)= his, her, your (formal), their
su dinero (his money), sus plumas
nuestro(-a, -os, -as)= our, nuestro plato (our plate), nuestras casas, vuestro(-a, -os, -as)= your (fam. pl.), vuestro radio, vuestras plumas .

Note: don’t confuse between the three forms of possessive:

Possessive adjective (short/unstressed form): mi, tu, su, nuestro/a, vuesto/a , nuestra casa (our house).

Possessive adjective (long/stressed form): mío, tuyo , es un amigo tuyo ( he is a friend of yours).

Possessive pronoun: el mío, el tuyo, es el mío (it’s mine)

Prepositional Pronouns in Spanish

Spanish prepositional pronouns are used after prepositions, often in order to emphasize the noun they replace. There are 11 forms of prepositional pronouns, The only difference between prepositional pronouns and subject pronouns is the first and second person in the singular, (mí and ti instead of yo and tú), plus we have a neuter form ello in the prepositional pronoun.

Examples:

A mi, no me gusta el carne de cerdo = me (to me), I don't like pork

Quiero estudiar con ellos = I want to study with them

Tengo un regalo para ti  = I have a gift for you.

But we also have ello which is for neuter, No tengo tiempo para ello = I don't have time for that.

estoy occupado, y por ello no puedo ir al cine= I'm busy, that's why I can't go to the movies.

Exceptions: We use subject pronouns after the prepositions como (like), entre (between), excepto (except), incluso (including), menos (except), salvo (except), and según (according to). Example: necesito un amigo como tú = I need a friend like you.

And also when paired with another pronoun: - para él y ella - por tú o yo.

Spanish Reflexive Pronouns:

Reflexive pronouns in Spanish are closely related to direct and indirect pronouns, by following the same rules of word order and using almost same pronouns.

I wash myself: me baño. What’s your name? (What do you call yourself?) cómo te llamas. So all pronouns ending in -self (-selves) are considered reflexive pronouns, in Spanish there're (me, te, se, nos, os, se), see table below for more detail.

Indefinite Pronouns in Spanish

Indefinite pronouns are those pronouns that typically refer to no particular person or thing. In Spanish as in English, most of the words used as indefinite pronouns sometimes they function as other parts of speech, often as adjectives and sometimes as adverbs. In Spanish, some of the indefinite pronouns exist in both masculine and feminine forms as well as singular and plural forms, so they must agree with the nouns they refer to.

Here is a list of the most common Spanish indefinite pronouns:

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Spanish Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns are used to refer to another expression or concept that preceded it. In English we have (that, which, or who). In Spanish we find (que, quien, quienes, el que, el cual) Note that these pronouns are not accents like the interrogative ones. So relative pronouns are pronouns that are used to introduce a clause that provides more information about a noun. Thus in the sentence "The lady who is talking is my teacher," the relative pronoun is "who"; the clause "who is talking" provides more information about the sentence's subject, "the lady." In the Spanish equivalent, la mujer que habla es mi profesora, the relative pronoun is que.

Not also that we can omit relative pronouns in English, but not in Spanish: I like the song (that) you’re singing, (that) is not necessary in this sentence, but in Spanish it cannot be omitted: me gusta la canción que estas cantando.

Que = that, which, who.

Quien = who, or whom after a preposition.

El que = that, which, who, whom.

El cual = that, which, who, whom.

It seems that they all mean the same thing!! So how do we know which one in specific cases?  A general rule is the longer the distance between the antecedent and the relative pronoun, the longer is the relative pronoun to be used, knowing that the shortest one is (que) with three characters and longest is el cual (6 characters).

Que: must be used when the relative pronoun comes immediately after the antecedent, when there is nothing between the two.

Me gusta la casa que tienes. (I like the house that you have).

Quien: is used when the antecedent is a person and there is some distance between the antecedent and the relative pronoun (a comma or a short (one- or two-syllable) preposition):

Roberto es el hombre con quien salgo. (Robert is the person who I’m going out with).

El que and the other forms (la que, los que, las que): are typically used when there is some distance between the relative pronoun and the antecedent, for example after a comma or a one-word preposition. This includes one-syllable prepositions often used with que (like en) and especially those which que might cause confusion if used with que, for example:

El pueblo en el que nací (the village where I was born).

El cual and the accompanying forms la cual, los cuales, and las cuales, are used when there is greater distance between the antecedent and the relative pronoun. The most typical examples is after compound prepositions such as acerca de (about, concerning), al lado de (beside), antes de (before), cerca de (near), debajo de (underneath), delante de (in front of), dentro de (inside), después de (after), detrás de (behind), and por encima de (on top of). As with el que, the numerous forms for el cual make it useful to distinguish between more than one possible antecedent.

La violencia doméstica es un mal sobre el cual es difícil hablar.

Spanish Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are quién, qué, cuál, and cuánto . A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun, and interrogative means questioning, so interrogative pronouns are pronouns used to ask the questions like who, what, which, and how much/many. Note that all of these words have accents.

Spanish Demonstrative Pronouns

Spanish has three demonstrative pronouns where English only has two. In English, we say "this" or "that" depending upon whether the object is close to us or not. In Spanish, we also say "this" and "that," but there is another extra word used to mean "that one over there." This form is used when the object is more than just a short distance away, for example, on the other side of the room. Here are the three forms for "this" "that" and "that one over there".

este (this) - ese (that) -aquel (that one over there).

Remember, the demonstrative pronouns are the same as the demonstrative adjectives, except that the pronouns have a written accent.

Each demonstrative pronoun also has a neuter form. They do not change for number or gender, they do not have a written accent, and they are used to refer to abstract ideas, or to an unknown object.

esto (this matter, this thing)
eso (that matter, that thing)
aquello (that matter/thing over there)

Spanish Indirect Object Pronouns

Indirect object pronouns are words that replace the indirect object, which is usually a person.

The Spanish indirect object pronouns are as follows:

Like direct object pronouns, Spanish indirect object pronouns are placed in front of the verb.

I'm telling you about him. - te hablo de él.
She sings to them - Les canta.
We lend you people our car. - os prestamos nuestro coche.
He asked us - Él nos preguntó.

Pronouns can get attached to the end in the case of infinitives, present participles, and affirmative commands:

Le voy a preguntar (or) Voy a preguntarle - I'm going to tell him.
Les quiero enviar una tarjeta (or) Quiero enviarles una tarjeta - I want to send them a letter.

Summery:

This is mainly what you need to remember about Pronouns in general:

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