It is true that a lot of high school teachers tell their students, we are learning Latin American Spanish and that is why we don't learn the vosotros. I myself always teach it (and use it because it comes naturally NOW), and respect students who don't USE it. But learn it? Yup. It is part of the language. I don't teach Mexicanisms, either. I say coche and tell them carro is OK in Mexico and auto in Argentina... a SPANISH teacher should know lots of variantes del espanyol and give students the choice/tools they need to speak the lang! Tools for those taco-studs, eh!

Sorry about the fork thing, no harm was intended.

Vosotros is used everywhere in Spain as far as I ever noticed, certainly in Andalucia - what is becoming much less frequent (in conversation) is usted/ustedes (though I've heard grown adults use it speaking to their parents in some places). So in Lat. Am. they use ustedes for 2nd pers. plu. ? Or what?

I agree with all the postings that favor the inclusion of vosotros in the teaching of Spanish- the tendency in Spain seems in fact to be to use both Usted and Uds. less and less and to extend the usage of tu and vosotros (or, as an intermediate level, to use the third person, but without Ud. and Uds., like asking someone: ¿quiere que le traiga algo?) I think to learn a foreign language and culture properly, you have to develop a sensitivity for the connotations of the different forms of addressing people. While it is obviously rude to address someone you are supposed to address with "Usted" with "tu" instead, it will also sound weired if you treat people too formally and put you unnecessarily at a distance. Of course, it is difficult to understand which one is adequate in which situation, even more so for a native speaker of English because you do not have a similar differentiation. But if you were never taught about the different variations, it is probably much more difficult.
The matter is different for other native speakers of Spanish-what may sound naturally if said to a Spaniard by a Mexican might sound weired if said by someone with another mother tongue, especially if the concerned person does not master the respective version of Spanish perfectly. This is true for Latin American countries as well (my Argentinian friends always laugh at me for saying "vale"- which seems so normal for me!) Therefore one should always strive for learning about the variations in usage.
The same is valid for English- I always tried as much as possible to be aware of differences in British and American usage and use the word adequate for the respective context, in the awareness that I probably will never master either one perfectly and that I'd do better trying to adapt to the context.

Can't we all just get along? Maybe we could get some closure on this thread? I'll see what I can do. Here ya go:
Re: Vosotros.
1. Some use it
2.Some don't
3.Use it if you want to
4.But you don't have to.

Alli lo TENEIS. Que TENGAN buen dia. Hasta luego.

Getting along is one thing; which we do just fine. It's topics such as these that make this message board particularly interesante.
Don't you think?

I thought you might all be interested in this:
According to SIL International www.sil.org ,
in 1996 there were 332,000,000 native speakers of Spanish in the world. 40,000,000 people live in Spain. Assuming that all are native speakers of Spanish and all use the vosotros form, that means 8% (a very liberal figure) of Spanish speakers use the vosotros form.

What I interpret Wendy E to be saying is that the second person plural is ONLY used by Spanish speakers in Spain. NOT!! I seem to remember Fidel Castro using it in his very long speeches. And Pope John Paul II used it as he addressed the throngs on his '99 visit to Cuba.
Perhaps the use of the correct Castilian (including the second person plural) depends on how far (temporally) a population is from the Madre Patria. Such as: I am personally acquainted with first generation Cubans who were sent back to Spain by their parents to study there.

Wendy E,
That 8% that use "vosotros" are from España, where Español comes from. The rest of the spanish speaking countries adopted our language and adapted our language in the way the wanted. If you are trying to say that because only the 8% uses vosotros is less valid I don't agree with you.
Language is a tool that we use to communicate and as long as I can communicate with the rest of the people I don't care if they/I use the proper English, Spanish or Chinese.

nice reply, Nuria.

not using vosotros is NOT to say that you are wrong. when in "rome" you will use the best possible method to communicate. but there will continue to be a population that learn vosotros and will use it in their daily speech. if the populations that do not use vosotros become more influencial, perhaps they will cause the vosotros using population to stop using it ( as an evolutionary theory on language ).

but Wendy E, your argument is not a reason to stop teaching vosotros.

my father lived in havana from about age 8 to about 19, and he learned and used vosotros, even tho he has said that much of cuba does not use it, there is a population there that does. you can hear fidel castro using it in his old speeches, i don't know about now... probably does...