Note the varieties of verb conjugations in the following example (asking “Where are you from?”)
¿De dónde eres tú?
¿De dónde sos vos?
¿De dónde es usted?
¿De dónde son ustedes?
¿De dónde sois vosotros?
In Barranquilla, among other places, the tuteo is predominant, or the use of tú rather than the more formal usted. It’s still common to use the formal pronoun with older people, authority figures, or recent acquaintances, but people adopt the tú form much more quickly than in other places.
In Bogotá, I was surprised to hear how much the ustedeo is used compared to the tuteo. For example, I often heard close friends address each other as usted; even older children would address younger children with the formal pronoun.
Here in Argentina (as well as many other regions of Latin America—see map below), the voseo dominates. After a few weeks I’m getting used to being addressed as vos instead of tú and to hearing verbs accented differently (due to the conjugation). And the voseo isn’t the only difference between Argentine and Colombian Spanish (or other dialects I’m used to). There are different vocabulary words (remis instead of taxi; pileta instead of piscina for pool; remera instead of camiseta for T-shirt); different pronunciations (“y” or “ll”, which are usually pronounced like the English “y” in yes, sounds like “sh” here…so Barranquilla is pronounced “BarranquiSHA); the prosody (or intonation) is more sing-songy, and there are a couple of words that are supercommon in Colombian Spanish that are taboo here, and vice versa.
Thank you (tú, vos, usted, ustedes, vosotros…) for reading :)
Dark and medium blue= Countries where the voseo is predominant.
Green= Countries where the voseo is used in some regions.
Light blue= Countries where the voseo is proporcianally scarce.
Red= (Spain, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Puerto Rico) The voseo is never used
