Subjunctive in Spanish is used when there are two subjects in the same sentence. There are other uses, of course, e.g. after quizas.
And for that other issue:
from here, a large Colombian daily, in it’s music/lifestyle section. I doubt that Shakira speaks archaic Spanish. With this I mean that saying that the second person plural is not used anymore in Latin American Castellano is too much of a blanket statement.
That’s weird, cuz I lived in Barranquilla for a couple years–I don’t recall people using vosotros. Maybe I didn’t notice. Or maybe she picked it up in Bogota. Or maybe it’s an affectation.
Yes, but at the same time calling someone “usted” when you’re on familiar terms can be a major insult. The use of the terms is complex.
My point exactly. It depends on the dynamics between the two speakers, as well as the flux of the conversation.
According to all the Spanish speakers I know personally (3 puertorriqueños, 5 cubanos, 6 dominicanos, 4 mexicanos, 1 columbiano, y 3 argentinos), vosotros is never, ever used in American Spanish. Most of these people were born and raised at least until age 16 or so in their home countries, so they have extensive native experience with the language. I know that Shakira lived in Spain for a few months after her last tour, so she may have picked it up there.
They tell me the only place they see it is in the Bible, like thou/thee/thy/thine in English. This explains the odd look I got when I said “Sentáos, por fa’” at a group of them at work. They knew what it meant, but they told me I should use “Sientense”.
I don’t have much to add, after all the OP and I even live in the same city, but in my limited experience *vosotros *is confined in Latin America to religious texts and overly verbose politicians (Balaguer).
It would be ironic if it is used in any country in Latin America, after all Caribbean Spanish is considered to be archaic and we use ustedes.
I get it now. Formal use; not formal addressing. So Mrs. Bricker meant that in formal occassions, people in said countries will revert to the use and distinction of the formal and informal second person plural forms. But am I now confusing formal/polite with informal/impolite forms? I honestly don’t remember, but had always thought on terms of formal and informal, because it’s logically not “impolite” to say “tu” to someone.
For what it’s worth, when someone (like a vendor) constantly uses the “usted” form with you, how do you tell him just to use to the “tu” form? Is there a specific cultural way to do this, or does it just amount to saying, “hey, Joe, use the ‘tu’ form with me, okay dude?”?
It can appear rude to use either form when the other is expected. It would seem rude and overly familiar to address your elderly neighbor as “tú”. If you call your spouse “usted”, though, it suggests you’re pissed at them. The distinction - where it is practiced - is analogous to calling someone by their first or last name. If you call your kid “Mr. Brown”, it sounds particularly stern. If you call your husband that, it implies distance. If you greet your 90-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Brown, with a hardy, “How’s it going, Milly?” it’ll seem rude.
“Usted” is formal, compared to “tú”, but it’s not only used in formal speech, and there are occasions in formal speech that still call for “tú”. It’s a complex bit of sociolinguistics. And not being a native speaker, I’m not competent to describe every subtlety in their usage. But the “thou” comparison is good - “thou” was only used in informal circumstances in Early Modern English. Still, if you hear someone using it (and it’s not a Renaissance Fair or a Shakespeare play), chances are it’s in some formal ceremony, or in church.
I believe there’s some sort of formal phrase for it, but I can’t quite dig it out of the ol’ memory bank at the moment, especially as there are similar phrases in the other Romance languages. Every word I learn in one language causes some word in another language to fall out of my head.
When people have asked me to call them “tú”, though, it was pretty much like you’re describing.
Heh. I used to be quite fluent in German, not quite to where I am in Spanish, but able to get around. Now, though, I say the same thing you said any time anyone asks me about it. 
The scary thing is, it sometimes seems to happen to me in English.
I always thought that the verb used to tell someone to call you “tú” instead of “usted” was tutear. Maybe it’s just some Puertorican/Caribbean slang, but I’ve heard it used in that context.
Lemme revise some crappy writing.
This distinction is practiced everywhere, and while it may be diminishing in certain registers in certain groups in certain places, I’m not aware of anywhere that doesn’t maintain this distinction at all. I had a brain fart.
No, “thou” was equivalent to the “informal” or “familiar” tú - it shows up a whole bunch of times in the Bible, and that was definitely formal writing. It was used in formal and informal circumstances, but it was the less explicitly polite form used in addressing a person.
Happens to me all the time. It’s useful to be around people who speak enough Spanish so that when I give up in frustration and grab the Spanish word, they understand me.
Definitely a word in common use (the French equivealent is “tutoyer”; I believe there is no single-word equivalent in Italian.) However, I’m not sure if there’s a phrase - sort of an ersatz “ceremony” - when two people decide to tutear.
I’ve heard that there’s an old custom in Germany (probably only in some places) where the switch from Sie to die between men (is that right? I only know as much German as I’ve picked up from the opening number in Cabaret) involves drinking a beer with linked arms.
The Germans are fun.
Yes, *tutear *is a perfectly cromulent term in Spanish. And no, there’s no ceremony involved in the decision to start using *tu *instead of usted. A casual “me puedes tutear” would suffice.
Darn, those Germans know how to do stuff.