Vos commands in Costa Rica

As I mentioned in a recent post, Costa Ricans use the same vos form as in other parts of Central America and in South America (most notably Argentina, but excluding the vos form in Chile).

I also gave a quick introduction to vos conjugations in the present tense, but I left out the imperative form. There's an easy way to fix this, because it's really quite simple.

For the verb hablar simply cut off the 'r' at the end. What you get is hablá, with the emphasis on the last syllable. If you read my last post on the voseo you'll note that this is simply the indicative form in the present tense without the 's' at the end.

When you're walking around downtown San José you'll notice that many advertisements will use vos commands. "Entrá y ahorrá", a store might say to entice you. "Jugá y ganá", might be a sales pitch to the foolhardy lottery player. (No offense to lottery players.)

Vos commands work the same for reflexive verbs, except that there's a spelling change when only one pronoun is attached to the end. For example, to tell someone to sit down you might say sentate, with the accent in its "natural" penultimate position, eliminating the need for the tilde. The same applies for commands with direct or indirect pronouns attached, provided there's only one. (When there are two pronouns attached the tilde will always show up, as the tonic syllable always requires a written accent mark when it is the thir-to-last--or antepenultimate--within the word.)

Let me know if you have any questions. As promised, I will soon address the issues of irregular vos forms and the history of the vos pronoun.

Word of the Day: Voseo

OK, most Costa Ricans don't actually use the word voseo--which is the use of the 'vos' as a second person singular pronoun--but el voseo is something that trips up many a foreigner, so I feel obligated to write about it now and then.

Regarding the use of vos is Costa Rica, one must keep a few important things in mind:

• Vos is a perfect substitute for the pronouns tú, and Ud. that are taught in Spanish classes in North America (as well as in Latin American classrooms).
  
• Ud. and vos predominate in everyday spoken language. While Costa Ricans know the pronoun tú, it is mostly relegated to two specific (but important) uses--speaking to God and speaking to a lover. (Bibles refer to God as tú.)
• Ud. and vos are for the most part interchangeable, except that in most formal situations you will want to use Ud. My advice to travelers in Costa Rica is to use Ud. at all times, which tends to be a practice of many Costa Ricans, anyway.
• Vos has its own verb forms in the present tense, but it uses the tú forms in the past and future tenses.

Regular vos conjugations are as follows:

• tocar (to touch) --> vos tocás
• comer (to eat) --> vos comés
• decir (to say, to tell) --> vos decís

As you can see, it is simply a matter of replacing the 'r' with an 's'. As a matter of orthography you will also add a tilde to the last syllable, but that is simply because of a spelling rule.

It's also helpful to look at it as a cousin to the vosotros form, which it pretty much is. To make vosotros singular, forming the vos form, you simply do the following for -ar, -er, -ir verbs:

• tocáis --> tocás
• coméis --> comés
• decéis --> decís

As you can see, the -ar and -er verbs take out the 'i' and the -ir verb takes out the 'e'.

This short lesson will be just about all you'll need to know about voseo in Costa Rica--or just about anywhere else on earth except for Chile. However, for those of you who would like to know about irregular vos forms and the history of the pronoun in both Spain and the New World, I will soon create a post on those issues.