Spanish to Slovenian: distinguish two people from a larger group and one respected addressee
Spanish ustedes does not specify whether the group contains two
The RAE identifies ustedes as the plural of usted. In the Americas and some Spanish regions, it addresses several people in familiar as well as formal situations. It therefore cannot by itself determine either the exact number of addressees or their social distance. Slovenian introduces another decision because its personal pronouns distinguish singular, dual and plural.
Marc Greenberg’s reference grammar lists vidva and feminine vedve as second-person dual forms, distinct from plural vi. A Spanish message directed to two familiar people supplies a different target number requirement from a message directed to a larger group. When the source only says ustedes, the preceding situation may be needed to establish which group is intended.
Respect can change grammatical form without changing the headcount
The same Slovenian grammar explains that second-person plural vi also serves as an honorific for an individual. This creates a different mismatch with Spanish: singular usted normally takes third-person Spanish verb forms despite referring to the person being addressed. Translating by matching grammatical person and number mechanically would miss both systems’ ways of encoding social relations.
Suppose a Spanish letter addresses one official with usted. That official has not become two people simply because Slovenian offers a dual, and has not become a third party merely because the Spanish verb is third-person singular. The intended recipient remains one addressee. The choice concerns how to address that person, not how many officials are mentioned.
For an American Spanish message using ustedes with several friends, the source form alone does not establish formal address. The RAE explicitly includes informal plural uses. A translation should not add unnecessary distance by interpreting every ustedes as a respectful counterpart of singular usted. Determine the relationship and the actual group size separately.
A named companion may already be included in the dual
Greenberg illustrates Midva z Miranom greva v Lendavo, meaning that Miran and the speaker are going to Lendava. The dual includes the named companion rather than adding him to an already complete group of two. A Spanish reader must not count the dual pronoun as two unnamed people and then add Miran as a third traveler.
This is useful when translating a Spanish message about the speaker and one companion. Spanish can use a plural expression for that pair without a special dual form, while the Slovenian construction makes two-person participation grammatical. Preserving the travelers requires interpreting the whole coordinated relationship rather than treating each visible phrase as an additional participant.
Dual reference also does not settle whether the listener belongs to the pair. Greenberg explicitly notes that first-person dual and plural forms can require clarification of their participants. A Spanish nosotros referring to the speaker and listener and one referring to the speaker and someone absent can concern different people despite the same headcount. In this pair, count, inclusion and respect are distinct translation decisions; solving one does not automatically solve the others.
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