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Is Spain the only country that uses vosotros for you all (informal) instead of ustedes? (In the second-person perspective). Examples:

Spain: Vosotros sois inteligentes.

Other (?): Ustedes sois inteligentes.

All: Ustedes son inteligentes.

Correct me if me (or my examples, most likely) are incorrect, but I want to know if what I learned is right :)

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    Don't forget that your adjective needs to agree in number too, so all of these need inteligentes instead of inteligente Sep 16, 2014 at 0:26
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    @guifa I fixed that
    – leonbloy
    Sep 16, 2014 at 11:34
  • It is still used in Argentina as quotidian speech.
    – Norman O
    Sep 22, 2014 at 20:02
  • In Argentina: Vos sos inteligente.
    – Rodrigo
    Nov 21, 2014 at 19:15
  • @Rodrigo Vos is singular, though, and thus equivalent to tú/Vd.. Vosotros is plural. (Theoretically: vos sos argentino, y vos sos argentina. Por eso, vosotros sois argentinos, although there is no region I know of that activitely uses both vos and vosotros) Nov 22, 2014 at 15:09

3 Answers 3

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Vosotros is used in the majority of Spain, Equitorial Guinea, and Western Sahara and for ser would take the conjugation you note. The latter two have substantially smaller populations than Spain or any other Spanish-speaking country so they are often ignored in discussions on linguistic issues in Spanish (not to mention that in many if not most cases their Spanish-speakers are non-native).

In some parts of Andalucía, you will hear ustedes with a vosotros conjugation, but that is not considered part of Standard Spanish and is best to be avoided by people not from that region.

You can still hear vosotros used in parts of Latin America, but never as quotidian speech — it will always be in some sort of a heightened register (religious, poetic, ceremonial), and even then such uses of vosotros are rarer and rarer every day.

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    @Timtech In America we almost don't use vosotros, it has a more literary use. Although is very unusual to use it when you speak. But we understand it perfectly, is not a problem.
    – Aradnix
    Sep 16, 2014 at 4:40
  • In América it's only in the Bible, or mimicking Spain accent, but it is not used but it is completly understandable.
    – Jaume
    Sep 18, 2014 at 4:13
  • @jaimecruztriana and even then, many Bible translations today use ustedes exclusively. Some dioceses even have permission to do most of the liturgy of the mass with ustedes now (I think the consecration is the only thing that must be vosotros) Sep 18, 2014 at 8:21
  • Throughout Latin America, the majority of Bibles use the vosotros form for the 2nd person plural. Almost everyone familiar with the Bible recognizes it, even if they don't use it. Sep 20, 2014 at 16:12
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Ustedes sois inteligentes.

This is simply wrong; it pairs third-person "Ustedes" with second-person "sois".

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  • That example is for second-person, where "ustedes" is used in place of "vosotros", as it is in most parts of the world, except for Spain and a few other places.
    – Timtech
    Sep 19, 2014 at 10:53
  • @timtech Though Vds. is semantically 2nd person, grammatically it is 3rd. 98-99% of Spanish-spekers would hear "Vds. sois" as a subject/verb mismatch. I don't like using the word "wrong" but it is definitely non-standard. Sep 19, 2014 at 15:24
  • @guifa It's what I've been taught, sorry for the misconception.
    – Timtech
    Sep 19, 2014 at 18:36
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In Colombia we use vosotros but only when learning Spanish grammar in elementary, however we don't use it outside the notebook.

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