Some time ago we were discussing null or implied subjects in Spanish and my American student compared it to the use of contractions in English.

In a very similar way, when we use contractions we sound more fluent in English, and so do we when we drop the subject pronoun in Spanish.

We refer to those hidden subjects as sujetos tácitos.

I bet most English speakers would argue that contractions are not that difficult to incorporate, and that most Spanish speakers drop subject pronouns as easily.

Spanish, along with other languages such as Italian, Chinese and Arabic, belongs to the group of languages that permit sentences with null subjects. On the other hand, languages such as German, French and English, don’r do that.

At least in Spanish, the reason why we can drop the subject is because the verb carries much more information than in English. You need only see/hear the form of the verb to understand who the subject is in a particular sentence.

So, next time you have to choose between:

Yo me llamo x and Me llamo x, go for the second.

Start small and then scale it up!

Good luck!

You might also want to read these articles:

• How to go about with reading in Spanish
  In this post I want to make you want to read, even if you feel you’re not ready for it.
• Implied subject
  This post deals with a little tweak that can make your Spanish sound more natural —dropping the subject pronoun.
• Start Shadowing now!
  Today I’ll get you started with shadowing, so your Spanish speaking skills go through the roof.
• Argentinian Provinces and Demonyms
  This is a short geography lesson, where you’ll learn the name of the provinces and demonyms for each of them.
• Let’s in Spanish
  In this post we take a minute to see how Let’s phrases translate into Spanish.
• Papelón
  In this post we pay attention to a word that you can come across very frequently when referring to embarassing events.