Learn Spanish Imperative in 10 minutes

Imperative is a grammatical mood which is used to:

• To give instructions
• To give permission
• When offering something
• To give advice

Imperative Affirmative in Spanish

Imperative affirmative in Spanish has 4 forms: tú and vosotras/as ( informal), usted and ustedes (formal). So what do these personal pronouns mean?

• tú – you (informal/singular)
• vosotros/as – you all (informal/plural)
• usted – you (formal/singular)
• ustedes – you all (formal/plural)

Please note that imperatives in Spanish are not used with yo (I), él (he), ella (she) and nosotros (we).

How to form Imperative Affirmative in Spanish?

To learn a language efficiently, it’s always a good idea to build a solid foundation first by learning the rules. Here, we are going to learn how to make a verb Imperative with different personal pronouns.

• How to form Imperative with tú?

With most of the verbs, making tú form of a verb imperative is going to be very easy, just take the present conjugated form of the verb with tú and remove -s. Let’s see how:

piensas will become piensa.

comes will become come.

duermes will become duerme.

¡Atención!

There are certain irregular verbs that don’t follow the above rule

• salir = sal
• poner = pon
• hacer = haz
• venir = ven
• tener = ten
• decie = di

We just saw, how to make tú form of a verb Imperative. Let’s look at few examples to make it even clearer

• How to form Imperative with usted?

To form Imperative in usted form, you must know the present third person conjugation of usted. Take the conjugtion and reverse the ending vowel. Verbs ending with -ar will end with -e, verbs ending with -er, -ir will end with -a. Let’s see how:

piensa will become piense.

come will become coma.

duerme will become duerma.

Let’s look at a few examples to make it even clear

To give instructions

• abran la ventana por favor

Open the window please

• apague la luz

Turn off the light

To give permission

• ¿Podemos entrar por favor?

May we enter please?

• sí, pasen pasen

Yes, please enter

• ¿podemos tomar el libro?

Can we take the book?

• sí, tomenlo

Yes, take it

When offering something

• prueben la pizza, esta muy deliciosa

Try the pizza, it’s very tasty

• tomen la pelota y juega

Take the ball and play

To give advice

• ¿Qué me ponemos hoy?

What should we wear today?

• Ponganles la camisa negra, te queda muy bien

Wear the black shirt, it suits you very well

• No sabemos qué comer

We don’t know what to eat

• Comen la masa primero

Eat the pastry first

¡Atención!

There are certain irregular verbs that don’t follow the Imperative conjugation rule for usted and ustedes. These are the verbs which have an irregular first person conjugation in the present tense. What you need to do is, take the ending -o and replace it with -a for usted form and -an for ustedes form. Let’s look at the verbs

• pongo – ponga/pongan
• hago – haga/hagan
• salgo – salga/salgan
• tengo – tenga/tengan
• vengo – venga/vengan
• digo – diga/digan
• traigo – traiga/traigan
• conozco – conozca/conozcan

Imperative Affirmative for Ser and Ir

Imperative forms of one of the most used Spanish verbs ser and ir are unique and don’t follow the rules that we discussed above. Let’s see how are they conjugated in Imperative

Using Imperative with Pronouns

When learning Imperatives it’s very important to learn how to position the pronouns because you’re gonna use it very often. Subject pronouns are often omitted and you’ll not hear someone using it while using the imperative. Apart from that, all the pronouns will come after the verb and will be attached to the verb making it a single word. Talking about the position, verb will be followed by the indirect object pronoun/reflexive pronoun following by the direct object pronouns. If the command is two syllables or more, an accent mark will be placed at the second to last syllable without counting the pronouns.

• With direct object pronouns

• cuéntame de tus padres

Tell me about your parents

• Dime lo que pasó

Tell me what happened

• With reflexive pronouns

• fíjate bien

Pay attention

• With direct object pronouns

• Súbeme la radio

Turn on the radio for me

• With direct and indirect object pronouns

• cómpramelo por favor

Buy me that please

¡Atención!

In the reflexive verbs, when we combine the vosotros form of Imperative with the pronoun os, the -d at the end of the conjugated stem is replaced by os.

Negative Imperative in Spanish

Unlike English, Spanish has different conjugations for Imperatives. In English, you just need to add don’t before the verb but here even the conjugation changes in some forms. Let look at the basic conjugations first

Making a verb Imperative in negative form is much more easier than the affirmative form. You don’t have to learn different rule for each pronoun, let’s see how to make verbs Imperative in it’s negative form

• With usted and ustedes

As you might have noticed, Imperative form for usted and ustedes is same in both affirmative and negative form. You just need to add no before the Imperative form to make it negative.

• With -ar verbs

Like I mentioned above, making a verb Imperative in it’s negative form is much simpler than to make it affirmative. With the -ar ending verbs, just take the present tense conjugation of the verb and replace the a with e.

hablas – no hables

habla – no hable

habláis – no habléis

hablan – no hablen

• With -er/ir verbs

With the -er/ir verbs, it’s the opposite to what we do with -ar verbs. Here, replace the e of a present form conjugation with a. There is one exception, in -ir verbs the vosotros form -ís will become -áis rather becoming ás as per the rule.

comes – no comas

come – no come

coméis – no comáis

comen – no coman

¡Atención!

There are certain verbs that have the irregular first person conjugation in the present tense, those verbs don’t follow the negative Imperative conjugation rule for any personal pronoun. What you need to do is, take the ending -o of it’s first person form and make rest of the changes as per above mentioned rule. Let’s look at the conjugation of 2 irregular verbs.

Imperative Negative for ser, ir and estar

Just like Imperative in affirmative, verbs ser and ir don’t follow the regular Imperative rules, this time with the verb estar. Let’s see how to conjugate them

Using Negative Imperative with Pronouns

Unlike the use of pronouns in the affirmative form of Imperative, the object pronouns will be used before the verb and not with it as in the affirmative for. Position of the pronouns will be the same as in the affirmative form, indirect object pronouns/reflexive pronouns will come before the direct object pronouns. They will be written separately and not as a same word.

• No me digas lo que tengo que hacer

Don’t tell me what I have to do

• No me hagas preguntas tontas

Don’t ask me silly questions

• No nos pidas que renunciemos

Don’t ask us to quit

• No lo comas por favor

Don’t eat it please

• No me lo escribas

Don’t write me this

Conclusion

Today we learned where the Imperatives are used, how to make regular verbs Imperative with all it’s forms, how to use pronouns with Imperatives, irregular verbs which don’t follow the general rule. We learnt how negative Imperative form is different to the affirmative form. Also, we looked at the irregular verbs which have a seperate conjugation for becoming in their Imperative form.

Interested in learning more? It can be a good idea to learn these grammar points as well

• Preterite ve Imperfect tense

• Future tense in Spanish

• Possessive Adjectives in Spanish