A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. Pronouns can be of the following types: personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns and indefinite and negative pronouns. These categories of pronouns exist in both English and Spanish.

Spanish personal pronouns, however, are more numerous than their English cousins. Besides, in Spanish, various kinds of subjects of verbs, objects of verbs and objects of prepositions have their own set of pronouns, and none of the sets are interchangeable with each other.

For example, the English ‘you’ serves as both the subject pronoun and the direct object pronoun in the singular and the plural, in informal as well as formal occasions. In Spanish translation, the ‘you’ will be rendered as ‘tú’ in case of a singular subject pronoun in an informal occasion and ‘te’ in case of a singular direct object pronoun in an informal occasion. Further variations are introduced for the plural number and for formal occasions.

In the first place, Spanish translators must be well-versed in all these usages. In the second place, they must remember that Spanish subject personal pronouns need to be rarely used because the gender and the number of the subject in a Spanish sentence are indicated by the verbs themselves. Thus, while working on a Spanish translation, they can safely omit the Spanish subject personal pronouns.

There are two instances when the Spanish subject personal pronoun needs to be retained in the Spanish translation: firstly, during the use of the formal ‘you’ in Spanish, that is ‘usted’ and ‘ustedes’, and secondly, for the sake of emphasis.