When to use vos?
 

Gaucho - I am trying to resurrect my feeble Spanish to add some depth to my visit and be a good tourist (I can probably understand Spanish well enough to do whatever I would be doing, it is speaking that is always the problem.). The Pimsleur language tapes are helpful as they force you to speak, but Argentinean Spanish has idiosyncracies all its own, especially "vos." I found the conjugations and other useful grammatical information here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo

http://spanish.about.com/cs/historyo...h/f/vosqow.htm


But in what situations would I use vos as opposed to usted? I understand the difference between vous and tu in French, but every country has its own customs about the informal pronoun and in other parts of Central America tu is patronizing. I guess usted is always safe, but are there situations where it would sound stilted?

Anything else one should know about the Spanish of Buenos Aires?

Muchas gracias!

(duplicate post)

it all depends on how formal you wish to be
 

Hi FBG--

In Argentina, "vos" is equivalent to the use of "tu" in Spain. The best example in another language that I can think of is the german usage of "Sie" and "Du".... with the Argentine equivalents being "Usted" and "Vos".

Even though everybody will understand if you use the Spanish "tu", in Argentina the usual word is "vos".

How do you know when to use "Usted" instead of "vos"? It depends on how formal you wish to be in your speech. The usual norm is that you would use the more formal "Usted" with someone that is older than you, someone that you do not know well enough, or someone with whom you would rather remain at distance. You normally use "vos" with your friends/family and "Usted" with a client.

Of course, as with most forms of language all over the world, nowadays the informal "vos" is being used more and more... even in situations where one would (in the past) never have thought of saying anything but "Usted".

Ultimatetly, it will be a judgement call on your part. Whats important for you to remember, however, is that most Argentines will not mind if you use either forms as they will appreciate that you are learning the language and trying hard to communicate, which will get you a lot of leeway and flexibility. I dont think you need to be worried about folks feeling patronized for a minor "mistake" in the use of vos/usted.

I called a bus company to find out about bus routes (info in a previous thread I started) and was a little surprised to hear the man on the other end use 'vos' when speaking to me from the very beginning of the conversation. I would normally expect the person answering phone calls for a company to use 'Usted'. So they must be a friendly bunch :D
A good rule of thumb for using either tu or vos as opposed to usted is to let the native speaker set the tone and then you just follow his or her lead.

Wirelessly posted (Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x320)

Yeah, you are right. The agent should have used Usted.

On the other hand, in some countries like El Salvador or Colombia, people use the Usted form much more often. It is used even between friends and family.

I heard the same thing from a Puerto Rican friend who was completely nonplussed overhearing a Colombian acquaintance talking to her family and using usted.