Ustedes

Hi!

I've got a question concerning Spanish.

When you say "I saw you (plural)" in Spanish using 'ustedes', do you need 'los', or can you omit it?
Can you say "Vi a ustedes" instead of "Los vi a ustedes"?

Thanks!

You have to say "Les vi a ustedes"." A ustedes "is optional since it's implicit in "les" that you are using the polite pronoun ustedes. Otherwise you would say "os vi". "Los vi a ustedes" is incorrect, but probably you have heard it to many South Americans. Never mind, it's still incorrect, loismo to be more precise. "Vi a ustedes" is wrong as well.

Sorry about the Guest above, he obviously haven't got any idea what he's talking about. "los vi a ustedes" is the correct one, the double DO pronoun is necessary in this case. "les vi a ustedes" is also an acceptable form called "leísmo de cortesía" (polite leism). You can hear it in some places in both Latin America and Spain, but not for example in Argentina.

Regarding "los vi a ustedes" being a loísmo, it doesn't make any sense of course, you can't never trust the intuition of a Norther Spaniard about pronoums, they are wrong most of the time, because they use a non-standard system.

I can assure you that "Les vi a ustedes" is correct and perfectly standard in Spain. I don't know about other parts of the world but "los vi a ustedes" is not used here.

"Les vi a ustedes" is incorrect in American Spanish speaking communities.
''Os vi'' as well. No one would understand it if used.

If I can understand ugly voseo of course you can understand "os vi". It's not that difficult.

Os vi means ''I saw them'' in formal colloquial Brazilian Portuguese.

In Castilian Spanish it means I saw you (plural). By the way, what does formal colloquial Brazilian Portuguese mean? Is it formal or colloquial?

"I can assure you that "Les vi a ustedes" is correct and perfectly standard in Spain."

Has anyone said it wasn't correct? You can assure nothing, it is a case of polite leism in Spain and everywhere, and of course it is not standar, that's bullshit.

"I don't know about other parts of the world but "los vi a ustedes" is not used here."

If you don't know just shut up, "los vi a ustedes" is the standar form in Spanish, whatever Spanish. In Spain, due to a number of reasons "les vi a ustedes" is very widespread, for example polite leism in the South and plain leism in the North. But so it is in some countries of Latin America, it doesn't make it standar, because, mind you, a ustedes is DO and los is the STANDAR pronoun for plural masculine DOs

Les vi ustedes is standard everywhere in Spain. Nobody says" los vi a ustedes." That sounds weird.

^ "os vi" is correct in all variants of Portuguese, being it colloquial or formal.
It doesn't have anything to do with this thread though...

"In Castilian Spanish it means I saw you (plural)."

How extraordinary!
In Andalusian Spanish it means the same, and so it does in Mexican Spanish, we could keep collecting testimonies and who knows? Perhaps in the end we will discover that we all speaks the same language!

With the exception of people in the Cono Sur, most Spanish speakers in the world would recognise that sentence as theirs, due mainly to the polite lesim. So please guys stop spreading all that nonsense. It doesn't make it standar in any way you could think about it.

"Les vi ustedes is standard everywhere in Spain. Nobody says" los vi a ustedes." That sounds weird."

Regarding Spanish there is one and only one standar, that's the RAE you pillock. Read the entry of "leísmo de cortesía" in the DPD if happens that you can read and show me the line where it says it is standar.

Spanish remains interesting because of its variants. What is standard in one place is hotly debated in another region.

I agree K.T, but I don't think that "os vi" is difficut to understand for a Latin American speaker like another Gest said, despite it's not standard there. Voseo is not standard at all in Spain but I understand it perfectly.