How come the subject is omitted in Spanish?

Question

You can find hundreds of sources where they say that the subject can be dropped if it doesn't add any additional information. As "voy" is the 1st person singular conjugation of "ir", you know that the subject is "yo". That sounds reasonable when coming from the English language, where conjugation is basically missing.Well, but my mother-tongue is German and in German we do decline verbs as well. As "gehe" is the 1st person singular conjugation of "gehen", the subject is "ich". But in German you generally don't omit the subject. And that's true for other languages, too. French, for instance. As "vais" is the 1st person singular conjugation of "aller", the subject is "je".So, how come that Spanish language has developed in a different way?

Answer 1

In Spanish you are able to drop the pronoun because the verb conjugation is specific for every pronoun. Except in the 3rd. person (singular & plural), in which case, you might need to include the pronoun to specify who you are referring to.

Answer 2

Remember that no two languages are the same. I speak French as well, and as you said you cannot omit the subject. For example, you can't say "Vais chez moi", you would say "Je vais chez moi".

Now Spanish is different. Not only the verb conjugation changes for every pronoun, but it also "sounds" perfectly fine to drop the pronoun. Examples:

Yo vivo en Chicago Vivo en Chicago

Tu vives en Chicago Vives en Chicago

Nosotros vivimos en Chicago Vivimos en Chicago

El/Ella vive en Chicago Vive en Chicago

Ustedes viven en Chicago. Viven en Chicago.

Ellos/Ellas viven en Chicago Viven en Chicago.

1. These last 3 only work if you know by the context of the conversation that you are talking about "Ustedes" or "Ellos" or "Ellas").

I hope this helps!