yo que tú
“yo que tú” — if I were you in Spanish. Phrase, level B1. the ú carries the stress: yoh keh TOO. In a live sentence: “Yo que tú se lo diría hoy mismo” — If I were you, I'd tell him today. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Spanish course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Spanish | yo que tú |
| Translation | if I were you |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
- yo que túif I were you
How to pronounce it
the ú carries the stress: yoh keh TOO
Why it looks that way
Literally 'I, were I you'; the conditional follows: yo que tú no iría. The longer variant: en tu lugar
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Yo que tú se lo diría hoy mismoIf I were you, I'd tell him today
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “if I were you” in Spanish?
«yo que tú». the ú carries the stress: yoh keh TOO. In a live sentence: “Yo que tú se lo diría hoy mismo” — If I were you, I'd tell him today. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally 'I, were I you'; the conditional follows: yo que tú no iría. The longer variant: en tu lugar. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.