Tu or usted? When to be informal in Spanish

When it comes to questions of language, sometimes the hardest answer to hear is, “It depends.” Unfortunately, that’s what you’re most likely to get if you ask a Mexican whether you should use the formal usted or the informal tu when speaking to another person. “It’s impossible for me to say, here it’s correct to use the usted form, and here it’s correct to use tu,” explains Professor Patricia Cordova Abundis, who studies linguistics at the University of Guadalajara. “What we can do is inform people, and give them advice.”

While the word “tu” comes directly from the Latin, the use of “usted,” often abbreviated and capitalized as “Ud.”, goes back only as far as the Middle Ages. It evolved as an agglomeration of the phrase vuestra merced, meaning “your mercy,” which was used in medieval Spanish as a way to address a person of certain prestige or power. In the current lexicon, usted serves two purposes, to demonstrate respect and/or to put distance between the speaker and the person he or she is addressing. “Age has a lot to do with it,” says Jorge Dibildox Villalobos, the 33-year-old proprietor of a tiny internet cafe in Colonia Moderna. “With older people I prefer to speak with usted, but it doesn’t bother me to speak with tu. If someone starts to address me with tu, it’s not a problem,” says Dibildox.

Many Mexicans claim to be flexible when it comes to switching between tu or usted. Beatriz Sanchez, who helps orient tourists in downtown Guadalajara’s Plaza Liberacion, says it’s usually foreigners who sweat it the most. “With Mexicans, they don’t really notice the difference, it’s more foreigners who worry about it,” she says.

Still, flexibility can vary between social classes. For 44-year-old Genaro Ramirez Estrada, who shines shoes on one of downtown’s pedestrian walkways, respect comes first: he would only use the tu form with a good friend, and expects the same treatment in return. “You don’t want to address me with tu, because to do that is quite serious,” he emphasizes. “There has to be a big friendship.”

According to Cordova, the linguistics professor, the formality surrounding the use of usted is closely associated with traditional values. Although in general, Mexican values have evolved since the counter-culture movement of the 60s, the granting of women the right to vote in 1963, and the advent of mass media, it’s still possible in rural pueblos to find families where children address their parents using the formal usted. “The more people are immersed in modern society, the more educated, the more they share democratic values, the less they will use the usted...amongst themselves and with other people,” Cordova explains.

One place where the transition to the informal tu is most striking is in the advertising industry. Francisco Zepeda is the creative director at KP Alazraki, one of Mexico’s top ad agencies, which serves clients as diverse as Xerox, Sanborn’s, and a slew of tequila labels.

“I would say the majority of our clients use the tu form to reach their customers,” says Zepeda. “It’s a way of communication that’s closer, of greater confidence, and more friendly.” As an example, Zepeda describes an ad campaign his firm created for financial giant Lloyd’s, which serves many older clients and retirees. Despite the age of the target audience, the agency ultimately went with the slogan Lloyd’s: tu dinero crece contigo (your money grows with you), which utilizes the informal tu. “What would happen if we said Lloyd´s: su dinero crece con usted? Really it sounds a little strange, and also a little cold, not as close,” Zepeda explains. “…It seems like I don’t have anything to do with it….as if I’m talking about something that’s going on God knows where, and being handled by God knows who.” One notable exception is for products or services aimed at a corporate or high-level financial audience, which use the usted form in order to retain a more respectful and serious tone.

The rules for using tu and usted are hardly set in stone, and they tend to vary from country to country (some South American countries like Argentina use a completely different form, known as the voseo). Still, in Mexico a few general guidelines can keep second-language speakers out of that rare awkward situation. First and foremost, use the usted form when meeting people older than yourself for the first time. If you have more in common with a person, especially with respect to age and socio-economic status, it’s usually better to start with tu, since usted implies a certain distance. If you’re not sure, it’s completely acceptable to start out using usted and stop midway through the conversation to ask Te puedo hablar de tu? (Can I address you with the tu?). More often than not, they’ll say yes, although according to who you ask, “It depends.”