Sustituimos

Sustituimos is the first-person plural present indicative form of the Spanish verb sustituir, meaning to substitute or replace. It indicates that we perform an action of substitution, assigning one element to take the place of another. The form is transitive and typically used with a direct object or with a replacement phrase, as in “Sustituimos la pieza defectuosa por una nueva” or “Sustituimos al director por su adjunto.”

Morphology and conjugation notes: Sustituir is a -uir verb with stem changes in several present-tense forms. In the present indicative, the forms are: yo sustituyo, tú sustituyes, él/ella sustituye, nosotros sustituimos, vosotros sustituís, ellos sustituyen. The nosotros form, sustituimos, is regular in its ending and is not spelled with a y, unlike some other present-tense forms of -uir verbs.

Usage considerations: Sustituimos can refer to replacing non-human elements (piezas, productos, componentes) or to substituting people in roles or positions, typically using the preposition a when the substitute is a person (sustituimos a X por Y) or the preposition por when referring to a thing (sustituimos X por Y). It is common in technical, administrative, and everyday language, including sports commentary when describing substitutions of players.

Related terms: Sustitución (substitution), sustituto (substitute, as a noun), sustituible (substitutable). While synonyms like reemplazar exist, sustituir often emphasizes the act of substitution rather than the overall replacement process.

Etymology: The verb derives from Latin substituere, through the linguistic developments that produced sustituir in Romance languages.