vos

One Person
American familiar vos addresses one person. Distinguish it from vosotros, the familiar plural used in much of Spain. Ustedes supplies the plural in the American varieties discussed here.

A Common Model
The common River Plate model uses stressed present forms such as hablás, tenés and podés, and affirmative commands such as hablá and vení. Learn the present pattern and command pattern. Present sos, vas and has need separate attention; andá commonly supplies the command for ir. A form with attached pronouns follows ordinary accent rules: sentá + te → sentate.

Regions Differ
Voseo is not one uniform conjugation system. Some varieties combine vos with verb forms associated with tú; others combine tú with voseo verb forms. Vos puedes is therefore not a universal grammar error, although vos podés is the model taught here. Chilean usage has different forms and social patterns.

Subjunctive And Negative Commands
Both tuteo negative command forms and stressed voseo forms such as no hablés occur. Argentine usage permits both types; Uruguay and Paraguay generally prefer tuteo subjunctive forms. The distribution varies within and across regions, so no fixed speech-versus-writing split covers them all.

Other Tenses
In the common River Plate model, forms such as vos hablaste, hablabas and hablarías match tú. Final -s in a preterite such as hablastes is attested but is not part of the cultivated standard taught here. Other regional systems also have distinct imperfect, conditional or future forms; do not claim that every past and future tense is identical everywhere.

Object And Possessive Forms
Use te as the unstressed object or reflexive pronoun and tu/tuyo for possession. After a preposition, vos replaces ti: para vos, con vos. Contemporary American familiar vos is the focus of this entry; the historical reverential use follows a different system.