AUDAZ REVISTA
9 of 290
Every guide says use usted in business. We read 51 Latin American company sites, 176,787 words. Only 9 of their 290 commands were formal.
01 / 08
The test
A command has to choose. Regístrate is tú. Registrate is vos. Regístrese is usted.
The same button cannot be all three. So we counted buttons.
02 / 08
272 to 9
Across 51 sites in five countries: 272 commands used tú, 9 used vos, 9 used usted.
The pronoun the guides tell you to default to is the one companies almost never use in public.
03 / 08
Argentina
Argentine sites wrote vos and never once usted. The RAE calls Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay areas of generalised voseo.
Suscribite y te escribimos por WhatsApp cuando tengamos una promo para vos. (Movistar Argentina.)
04 / 08
Same brand
Movistar writes vos in Argentina and tú in Chile and Peru. One company, one logo, three borders.
Treat the pronoun as a local setting, like a currency or a plug socket.
05 / 08
Chile
Chileans vosean in speech, but Chilean company copy wrote tú 59 times and vos never.
The RAE explains it in four words: en los registros formales se tutea.
06 / 08
Where usted lives
Of the 9 formal commands we verified, 8 sit on one business-to-business page. Claro says tú to shoppers and usted to companies.
Formality now follows the reader, not the map.
07 / 08
Use a colon
Estimado Sr. Martínez: then a new line and a capital letter. Never a comma.
The RAE calls the comma here una costumbre anglosajona que debe evitarse en español.
08 / 08
Two settings
Person to person, start with usted and let them move you down. Brand to audience, match the country: vos in Argentina, tú elsewhere.
Read the reply and follow it. That is the most reliable rule in the topic.
Tap for the full piece, the country table and the method.