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Another Spanish grammar question...

Are you supposed to put the person word (there is a special name for the word but I can't remember what it's called) in front of the verb or not? E.g is it 'Yo como' or just 'como'? One of my revision books says to put the [person word I can't remember the name of: yo, ellos etc] in front and the other one says not to, does it matter? This is GCSE level by the way in case it matters. Thank you. :smile:
Reply 1
Avatar for pie_monster
pie_monster
The personal pronoun isn't necessary because it's understood, particularly in the case when refering to yourself.
Reply 2
Avatar for KatieKate
KatieKate
10
No, you don't need to generally.

You do use it however if you are replying to a statement someone has made in the negative, eg.

"I eat ham"
"Myself, I eat carrots.

Como el jamon.
Yo, como las zanahorias.

or

He has a house.
They, they do not have a house.

Tiene una casa.
Ellos, no tiene una casa.

We don't really do this in English, but it works in spanish :smile:

Some of these language books put in the personal pronoun just so you can identify them, but you really don't need it.
I don't use it unless I'm stressing the person who did it, or there's ambiguity.

I mainly use it in the imperfect, because the 'yo' and 'el/ella/vd' forms are the same (yo trabajaba, el trabajaba, etc).

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