Spanish Forms of Address - Titles and Honorifics

Learn titles and honorifics in Spanish

Lesson Transcript

¡Hola, bienvenidos! “Hello, welcome!”

Mi nombre es Romina. ¡Mucho gusto! “My name is Romina. Nice to meet you!”

Today, I wanna talk about...a little bit about títulos and tratamientos en español.

So today, I wanna talk to you about titles and ways of showing respect or just being formal in Spanish.

So this video is very, very important if you are planning to travel to Latin America or Spain or if you work in an environment of where your boss happens to be from a Spanish-speaking country, or whenever you are in a situation when you’re talking to older people and you wanna be respectful in Spanish, okay? This is very, very important.

The first thing that you must know is how we say mister, miss and misses in Spanish, okay? I’m pretty sure you know this one, no? We use it quite a lot. I’ve...I’ve heard this one in many movies of Hollywood, so chances are you probably know it.

So the way we say “mister” is señor.

Please repeat.

Señor

So if you wanna make the female, if you’re talking to a lady, so you just need to add an A at the end, señora.

Repeat please.

Señora

So, of course, just like in English, when a lady is married, that’s when we will call her señora, okay? But sometimes, out of respect, we also use it to refer to elderly women or women that are way older than ourselves, right? So, it’s just to show respect, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re gonna check if this lady is wearing a ring or not, okay? You can call her señora. If...if she’s over, I don’t know, 50 or 60, you can say, señora. In fact, it’s so commonly used to refer to women of certain age that when you miss a girl that is married and she’s very young, on her 20s or 30s, then chances are that people wouldn’t call her señora, or if they do, they do it a bit in a..as a joke. Then they’re just friends, mock her a little bit by calling her señora.

So to those women that...the young girls are...are not married, then you wouldn’t call them señora. The way you will call them is señorita.

Please repeat.

Señorita

We also use this one quite a lot as a way of saying lady, you know, when...when you’re a girl and you’re not behaving very lady-like, then your mom will tell you, she will tell you something like…

¡Usted es una señorita! ¡Compórtese! “You are a lady! Please behave!”

You know, so señorita means a “lady,” I would say like young lady, most of the time.

And you might be thinking señorita ends in A. If I want to say “young boy” then, voila, all I need to do is get rid of that A and say O, right?

Señorito

And you will be correct, but we don’t really use señorito. It sounds like very, very old-fashioned like centuries ago. They will call some children, they will call them señorito, but I would say that, nowadays, we don’t really use it. And the only times I’ve heard it is when they’re trying to actually mock a rich kid, that is a little bit posh and too elegant. So, when they’re trying to make fun of him, they will say señorito, or maybe, I’ve heard as well, not in a negative way, but they’re trying to bully this person or make fun of him. It’s a…I heard also when you want to emphasize how well educated a person is, like for example, I’ve heard in situations where they would tell me that someone never says a bad word…

Él nunca dice una mala palabra. Es un señorito.

Like, he never says a bad word. He’s a...a very well-behaved boy of sorts, no?

But yeah, let’s say, chances are, you will not be using señorito a lot.

What I love is don.

Don

So don, I think a lot of people know this word because of the Italians and...and all the Italian mafia movies that we watch like “The Godfather.” And we...you will think that it’s just...it belongs just to the Italian, but it’s not the case. We also use it in Spanish. For example, my grandfather, everybody in my neighborhood, he was quite popular, he was very sociable, so everybody in the neighborhood, used to call him Don Enrique. Enrique was his name so that’s Henry for Spanish. So, instead of calling him Mr. Enrique, Señor Enrique, they will call him Don Enrique. So don is a bit of a formal title that we would give, particularly, elderly people and elderly men, right? Don is exclusive for males. You wouldn’t use it for females. And yeah, it just shows a lot of respect.

For females, you have to use doña, okay, so remember it’s a nasal Ñ, doña.

Repeat please.

Doña

So yeah, I just...in Argentina, my home country, I’m from...from Argentina, we still use don and doña quite a lot. So, I would...I would...I would wait till someone refers to an elderly person as don and doña. I wouldn’t bring it up myself, but I think if...if I have to refer to some...another person, I’ll just go straight to señor or señora, but obviously, if other people are referring to them as don or doña, then I will switch to don and doña as well. So, I would suggest to you, just to be aware of the word. It might pop up in conversation.

So, another thing that I want to talk about is when you are writing a letter or an email because chances are that you’re not gonna be writing a letter. I don’t think a lot of people write letters anymore, but if you need to send out an email in Spanish and you wanna greet your client or whomever is that you’re sending an email to and it’s a formal email, you don’t wanna be rude, so in English, you will be using “dear,” right?

The way we say dear, it depends from country to country. The ones that we frequently use are querido. That’s obviously male.

Please repeat.

Querido

The female version, of course, is querida.

Please repeat.

Querida

Another version that I personally prefer to use is estimado.

Please repeat.

Estimado

That’s for males.

So for females, you’re gonna be saying estimada.

Estimada

I know of another version that I’ve never used myself because, I think, it’s a little bit too posh, but you know, you know, many other people in other countries do use it, so I thought, maybe you should know it, just in case you come across this version. So, it’s distinguido. So, the literal translation of this one is “distinguish,” so that’s why I think it’s a little bit pompous and too much, so I personally wouldn’t use it, but you never know.

So, please repeat.

Por favor, repetir.

Distinguido

And the female version again is distinguida.

Distinguida

Again, I’m sure you know the difference between tú and usted.

So tú is informal. Definitely, try to avoid using tú in formal situations. Always stick to usted, always go for usted. If you’re feeling unsure, just use first usted and then, you can wait till the person tells you one of the following phrases, okay? If they notice that you’re being formal and you’re getting a lot very well and you can relax, right, so this person would tell you one of the following:

Puedes tratarme de tú

Another option that we use quite a lot in my country is…

Puedes tutearme

Make sure you’re not saying…

Puedes Twittearme

That’s using Twitter.

¡Muy bien, amigos! I hope that you enjoyed watching this video as much as I enjoy making this. I hope that you have enjoyed today’s topic. I personally find it very, very interesting and I’m pretty sure that you knew already one of these words. Please, let me know in the comments down below which words you already knew, okay, and if, maybe, you know any other words in Spanish for titles, titulo, títulos y tratamientos. Well, that will be it for today. Muchisimas gracias. Thank you so much for watching this video and I will see you next time. Nos vemos hasta la próxima. ¡Adiós!

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