Pronombre indefinido

Spanish Indefinite Pronoun

See also: Pronombre and Pronoun types

Indefinite pronouns refer to people or things without saying exactly who or what they are. They are vague or "not definite" because they do not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. Because they are pronouns, they stand alone; they do not accompany a noun like indefinite adjectives do.

Nadie vino a la reunión.
Nobody came to the meeting

Alguien me llamó por teléfono.
Someone called me on the phone.

No hay nada en la nevera.
There is nothing on the fridge.

Spanish indefinite pronouns are variable indefinite pronouns. This means that they must agree in number and gender with the nouns that they replace, so each of the pronombres indefinidos shown above will have different forms as you can see in the following table:

Nadie nobody
Alguien someone
Quienquiera whoever
Quienesquiera whoever (plural)
Algo something
Nada nothing

 

Notice that nadie, alguien, quienquiera quienesquiera refer to a person. While nada and algo always refer to things.

Both of these categories are considered invariable indefinite pronouns: they don't change to agree in gender or number with the noun that they are substituting.

There are some indefinite adjetives that if do not accompany a noun can work as indefinite pronouns. For example:

Todos salieron pronto de trabajar.
Everyone left  work early.

No es esta calle es la otra.
It's not this street it's the other one.

Algún día sus sueños se haran realidad.  
Someday your dreams will come true.

Have a look at this table with all the cases:

Todo every/all
Otro other
Poco a bit/ few
Algún some/ any
Ningún no ......
Mucho everyone/everybody

 

This table shows how these change to agree in gender and number:

 Singular masculine Singular femenine Plural masculine Plural femenine
Todo Toda Todos Todas
Otro  Otra  Otros Otras
Poco Poca Pocos Pocas
Algún Alguna Algunos Algunas
Mucho Mucha Muchos Muchas
Let me take a look at that...