Feeling bossy? Well you’re in luck, because it’s time to learn how to issue commands. The imperative mood is the set of verb conjugations used to directly tell someone what to do. In reality, the imperative mood isn’t just used by obnoxious bosses. It can be used in day-to-day conversation when making a request. It’s also handy for reading signs or understanding instructions in an airport. It’s like saying, “Hand me that” or “Walk three blocks” or “Get out of here” in English.
The imperative mood is used to give orders or commands and make requests. There are separate affirmative and negative forms.
* Note: Unlike tenses you’ve seen in previous lessons, the imperative forms do not follow a single formation pattern–instead there are different patterns for different subject pronouns. Don’t feel bad if this lesson feels confusing–Spanish learners often struggle to remember these patterns for formation. Go ahead and read through the lesson, but don’t worry about trying to remember all the formation patterns right off the bat. Your best strategy for internalizing these forms is simply to practice these verbs.
First, let’s look at the general formation of the affirmative imperative. There are several ways to form this depending on whom you are addressing. It may seem like a lot, but these are actually all forms of the verbs that you have seen before! With VerbMaster practice, you’ll have them mastered in no time at all. And don’t worry, we’ll have a table at the end that offers a summary of the conjugated forms for all the commands.
These informal imperative forms are for addressing friends, close associates, and family members. Remember, vosotros is only used in Spain. Their formations are pretty straightforward.
Example:
These are for addressing those of a higher social standing (bosses, elders, strangers) or for use in more formal settings (work, school). Norms for use vary from community to community, so it’s a good practice to ask or to respond to cues from members of the communities you belong to or visit.
* Stem-change, spell-change, and irregular verbs from the present subjunctive all work the same way here. If you need a review, feel free to go back tthose lessons and practice!
Example:
These are for saying, “Let’s __”, as in “Let’s go to the store!” or “Let’s eat!”.
Example:
So these are all of the endings for regular verbs in the affirmative imperative:
Below we add these endings to the stem:
What if we want to tell someone not to do something? If we want to say things like, “Don’t do that” or “Let’s not study tonight” or “Please, don’t text me,” we need to use the negative imperative. Good news! If you know your present subjunctive, you know your negative imperative.
Formation of the negative imperative:
The negative imperative has no irregular forms.
Example:
Regular verb endings for the negative imperative are below; notice that the usted/ustedes and nosotros forms are the same as their affirmative imperative forms:
Below we add these endings to the stem:
The only way to master these verbs is through targeted practice. Fortunately for you, VerbMaster’s intelligent tutoring system makes conjugation practice a breeze!
In this session you’ll practice conjugating hablar, comer and vivir in both the affirmative imperative and negative imperative. So what are you waiting for? Get to studying, you’re on your way to becoming a VerbMaster!
Don't just read the lesson, practice conjugating in the app!
Download VerbMaster now for iOS or Android!
