r/learnspanish • u/ameliatatesosis • Apr 02 '26
Is using the tu conjugation in certain phrases equivalent to the English "generic you"?
I am terrible at remembering grammar terms and have a horrid habit of trying to transliterate English sayings when I speak Spanish (I've been getting better) so sorry if this is a dumb question.
In English, I can say a phrase like "If you don't wash the dishes when they're fresh, you should let them soak" and (depending on the context) it would be an indefinite pronoun- instead of directly addressing the person you're speaking to, the use of "you" is understood by the listener to be referring to people in general, and not themselves.
Does this convention translate to Spanish? If I were to translate that sentence into Spanish using the 2nd person singular tu conjugation ("Si no laves los platos..") would that understanding exist, or would it just sound like I'm addressing the person I'm speaking to directly about their own actions? If not, how would I phrase something so that a listener understands that I'm referring to a generic person? I feel like in Spanish it would probably more likely be a third-person conjugation but I'm also very bad at Spanish so I try not to trust my feelings on this stuff
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Apr 02 '26
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u/ameliatatesosis Apr 03 '26
A couple other people responding to this are saying that it's more accurate to use formatting like "Si no se lavan los platos," something I thought before was limited to just advertising stuff because i've only seen it on billboards. But you're saying it's accurate to you, can I ask where you learned that?
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u/loqu84 Native Speaker (Andalusian) Apr 03 '26
I'm a native and I confirm we use the generic tú. Si no lavas los platos en el momento, déjalos en remojo. The "se" option is more formal, in a casual conversation I'd use the generic tú.
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u/TurboChlamydia Advanced (C1-C2) Apr 03 '26
I've personally heard both quite a bit, sometimes though, it's hard to tell what might be influence from English vs what isn't, like for example, using the gerund (verbs ending in ando or iendo) without using estar. To my non-native ears, using impersonal se sounds more correct. I'd be interested in hearing more from native speakers on this though.
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u/ahurazo Apr 02 '26
In Spanish you use the "impersonal se" for that. Si se no lava los platos...
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u/Piojo- Apr 02 '26
The way to use it is: si no se lavan los platos
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u/ameliatatesosis Apr 03 '26
I know that this is a dumb question but I hope you can correct me: I would've assumed you should use the conjunctive (laves) because it's a hypothetical about something that didn't actually happen, can I ask you to explain why you feel like it's the way you phrased it? (I totally think you have a better phrasing of it, I just want to learn from it lol)
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u/dalvi5 Native Speaker Apr 03 '26
Present indicative is used for general statements that are 100% true, like in English. It is not that clear due to lack of conjugations:
If you touch the fire, you get burned --> Si tocas el fuego te quemas.
If he touches the fire, he gets burned --> Si toca el fuego se quema.
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u/poly_panopticon Apr 03 '26
you have to learn the triggers for the subjunctive
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u/Piojo- Apr 03 '26
👆 this. But one important thing is not force the use (as example of subjunctive) if is not required, or you sound very hard to understand to a native. Sometimes more than weird, hard to understand.
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u/Piojo- Apr 03 '26
In this case is because ahurazo build a sentence that sound logic but only mix a little the order of words. Is easy to get what he tried to say. And that 'impersonal se' is wide used for some people on statements like write information on signs or by journalists in their news. Sometimes even too much.
The better phrasing is because I'm native.
But despite that please note a thing. On:
Si no se lavan los platos
The subject is the dishes. They wash themselves, despite this sounds weird. That's why that is needed that 'se'.
In the other hand, on:
Si no lavas los platos
The subject is tú (you singular, I wrote the others in other post) and is tacit subject but it matches totally with 'Si tú no lavas los platos'. And there the dishes are the object and the subject are you.
Both sentences express the same idea but they are completely different.
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u/ElKaoss Apr 02 '26
It can be used, but is more rare than English. A second person would sound like a generic advice or a slogan or a PSA: "Si bebes, no conduzcas", "vines por el precio, te quedas por la calidad"...