I am just beginning to learn Spanish in an adult evening class in England, and of course we are being taught Castellano. I would like to to ask an embarrassingly elementary question about Dominican usage.
I can, in principle, manage to use either tu and vosotros or usted and ustedes when conversing with Dominicans as appropriate. But, unless I am mistaken, I do not believe that they use the second person plural (familiar form) themselves. They either use the polite form ustedes or formulate their sentences differently. Is this observation correct?
Of course I have asked about this when in the DR but have never received a clear explanation. Sometimes people assume I am asking a more sophisticated question about voseo but this is a different issue (and, I understand, not much relevant to the DR).
I can, in principle, manage to use either tu and vosotros or usted and ustedes when conversing with Dominicans as appropriate. But, unless I am mistaken, I do not believe that they use the second person plural (familiar form) themselves. They either use the polite form ustedes or formulate their sentences differently. Is this observation correct?
Of course I have asked about this when in the DR but have never received a clear explanation. Sometimes people assume I am asking a more sophisticated question about voseo but this is a different issue (and, I understand, not much relevant to the DR).
Latin Americans never use vosotros. Ustedes is used for both formal and informal address. Vosotros might rear its head in prayer, literature or when someone is trying to make the distinction between 'su' (which can mean 'your' or 'their') so they use 'vuestro' to make it absolutely clear.