Choosing the right Spanish for the room: colloquial, neutral, formal
Spanish encodes formality in its pronouns. Spain uses four: tú/vosotros (informal), usted/ustedes (formal). Latin America drops vosotros entirely — ustedes serves everyone.
¿Tienes hora? (informal, to a friend)
¿Tiene usted hora? (formal, to a stranger/elder)
usted takes third-person verb forms — grammatically you talk ABOUT the person you're talking TO. Spain today defaults to tú faster than you'd expect; usted survives in officialdom, with the elderly, and in service contexts.
Formal documents avoid "you" altogether with the impersonal se — instructions, notices and signs live in this voice.
Se ruega silencio. (Silence is requested.)
No se admiten devoluciones. (No returns accepted.)
Se recomienda reservar. (Booking is recommended.)
se ruega, se recomienda, se prohíbe, no se admite — the four pillars of Spanish signage.
Spoken Spanish runs on small words that never appear in formal writing — recognise them, use them with friends only.
vale (OK) · venga (come on / OK then) · bueno (well...) · pues (well/so)
¿sabes? (you know?) · o sea (I mean) · en plan (like — youth slang)
A B2 speaker who drops a natural "pues nada, venga, hasta luego" sounds years ahead of the textbook.
Formal register swaps everyday verbs for their Latinate cousins — essential for formal letters and reports.
empezar → comenzar/iniciar · acabar → finalizar · pedir → solicitar
dar → proporcionar/facilitar · decir → comunicar/informar de · arreglar → subsanar
Le ruego que me facilite la información solicitada. (Please provide the requested information.)
Same trick as English (ask→request, start→commence) — Spanish formality is largely vocabulary choice.
Politeness also lives in verb tenses: the imperfect and conditional soften any request or opinion.
Quería pedirte un favor. (I wanted to ask you a favour — imperfect softener.)
¿No sería mejor esperar? (Wouldn't it be better to wait?)
Yo diría que es un error. (I'd say it's a mistake.)
quería, querría, quisiera — three rungs of the same politeness ladder. Climb according to the formality of the room.
Traps for English speakers
These are the errors English speakers make most often.