Spot the difference between “Have a pleasant day sir” or “Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen,” and the likes of “hey how’s it going?” or “you wanna grab a bite to eat for lunch?” One is an informal means of communication, while the other is formal; each has a time and a place to be used, and a particular vocabulary to abide by. Spanish is a language with a clear means for differentiating between the two, a select number of words change dependent on the formality of the occasion.

As you may know by now, Spanish has a few different ways to say ‘you,’ there’s the informal ‘tu,’ and the formal ‘usted,’ but then there is also ‘vos’ in Latin America; I’ve spoken before about the origins of these words and why Latin American Spanish is slightly different, the differences are more evident in these personal pronouns. In Spain the plural formal ‘you’ is ‘ustedes,’ in Latin America ‘ustedes’ is both the formal and informal plural ‘you,’ it is used regardless of occasion, whereas Spain use ‘vosotros,’ literally ‘you all’ for speaking informally.

What’s more, as you use a different pronoun, the conjugation of the verb will also be different; take the verb ‘comer,’ that is to eat: informally ‘tú comes’ — you eat, and ‘vosotros coméis’ — you all eat. When speaking formally, it becomes ‘usted come’ and ‘ustedes comen,’ as the singular ‘usted’ has the same conjugations used for ‘él/ella’ or him/her, and the plural ‘ustedes’ uses the same as ‘ellos/ellas’ or they. Things only get more difficult when taking into account Latin American Spanish, while the formal ‘usted’ and ‘ustedes’ remain the same, the informal ‘vos’ form is ‘comés,’ an entirely different conjugation from any in Spain.

So when exactly do you use these different types? The usage of informal and formal typically depends on who it is you’re talking to. While there are no hard and fast rules on when to use it and when not to, there is a general principal to follow: if in English you can use the persons first name, then you can use the informal way, if you would use something else, such as Mr, Mrs, or Sir, stick with the formal way. Of course there are exceptions, such as when dealing with someone much older than you, of a different social status, or in a specific culture; in these circumstances I would recommend using the formal conjugations to play it safe, if the person you’re speaking with is happy to let you speak informally with them, they’ll let you know, and will probably feel pretty chuffed that you spoke to them so politely, rather than the opposite of having someone feel insulted by your casual tone.

Can you think of other examples of situations where the formal tone should be used as opposed to informal? Have you ever accidentally used the wrong one?