Imperative

The Imperative Mood is used for giving commands; these are the “Do it!” or “Don’t do it!” forms. Spanish changes the verb depending on whom you’re addressing: informal (tú), formal (usted), plural (ustedes), or plural informal (vosotros) in Spain.

A key challenge is that affirmative and negative commands follow different patterns. The good news: many regular forms are based on verb conjugations from other tenses:

Simple rules for regular affirmative conjugations in the Imperative Mood:

• For tú, use the “él / ella / usted” Present tense form: hablar → habla, comer → come;
• For vosotros, replace the final “r” in the infinitive with “d”: hablar → hablad, comer → comed (even the most irregular verbs are conjugated like this);
• For usted, ustedes, and nosotros, use the Present Subjunctive form that swaps the ending with the opposite one (a → e, e/i → a): hablar → hable / hablen / hablemos; comer → coma / coman / comamos; vivir → viva / vivan / vivamos.

When learning the Imperative Mood, pay additional attention to memorizing irregular “tú” forms because many popular verbs have them (ven, ten, pon).

The Imperative Mood is used for giving commands; these are the “Do it!” or “Don’t do it!” forms. Spanish changes the verb depending on whom you’re addressing: informal (tú), formal (usted), plural (ustedes), or plural informal (vosotros) in Spain.

A key challenge is that affirmative and negative commands follow different patterns. The good news: many regular forms are based on verb conjugations from other tenses:

Simple rules for regular affirmative conjugations in the Imperative Mood:

• For tú, use the “él / ella / usted” Present tense form: hablar → habla, comer → come;
• For usted, ustedes, and nosotros, use the Present Subjunctive form that swaps the ending with the opposite one (a → e, e/i → a): hablar → hable / hablen / hablemos; comer → coma / coman / comamos; vivir → viva / vivan / vivamos.

When learning the Imperative Mood, pay additional attention to memorizing irregular “tú” forms because many popular verbs have them (ven, ten, pon).

The Imperative Mood is used for giving commands; these are the “Do it!” or “Don’t do it!” forms. Spanish changes the verb depending on whom you’re addressing: informal (vos / tú), formal (usted), plural (ustedes), or plural informal (vosotros) in Spain.

A key challenge is that affirmative and negative commands follow different patterns. The good news: many regular forms are based on verb conjugations from other tenses:

Simple rules for regular affirmative conjugations in the Imperative Mood:

• For vos, remove the final “r” from the infinitive and shift the accent to the remaining vowel: hablar → hablá, comer → comé;
• For tú, use the “él / ella / usted” Present tense form: hablar → habla, comer → come;
• For usted, ustedes, and nosotros, use the Present Subjunctive form that swaps the ending with the opposite one (a → e, e/i → a): hablar → hable / hablen / hablemos; comer → coma / coman / comamos; vivir → viva / vivan / vivamos.

When learning the Imperative Mood, pay additional attention to memorizing irregular “tú” forms because many popular verbs have them (ven, ten, pon).

The Imperative Mood is used for giving commands; these are the “Do it!” or “Don’t do it!” forms. Spanish changes the verb depending on whom you’re addressing: informal (tú), formal (usted), plural (ustedes), or plural informal (vosotros) in Spain.

A key challenge is that affirmative and negative commands follow different patterns. The good news: many regular forms are based on verb conjugations from other tenses:

Simple rules for regular affirmative conjugations in the Imperative Mood:

• For tú, use the “él / ella / usted” Present tense form: hablar → habla, comer → come;
• For usted, ustedes, and nosotros, use the Present Subjunctive form that swaps the ending with the opposite one (a → e, e/i → a): hablar → hable / hablen / hablemos; comer → coma / coman / comamos; vivir → viva / vivan / vivamos.

When learning the Imperative Mood, pay additional attention to memorizing irregular “tú” forms because many popular verbs have them (ven, ten, pon).

In the Imperative Mood, negative conjugations simply use the Present Subjunctive form of the verb with a “no”. So, by learning Present Subjunctive, you automatically learn Negative Imperative and vice versa:

• hablar → no hables, no hable, no habléis, no hablen
• comer → no comas, no coma, no comáis, no coman

In the Imperative Mood, negative conjugations simply use the Present Subjunctive form of the verb with a “no”. So, by learning Present Subjunctive, you automatically learn Negative Imperative and vice versa:

• hablar → no hables, no hable, no hablen
• comer → no comas, no coma, no coman

In the Imperative Mood, negative conjugations simply use the Present Subjunctive form of the verb with a “no”. So, by learning Present Subjunctive, you automatically learn Negative Imperative and vice versa:

• hablar → no hables, no hable, no hablen
• comer → no comas, no coma, no coman

In the Imperative Mood, negative conjugations simply use the Present Subjunctive form of the verb with a “no”. So, by learning Present Subjunctive, you automatically learn Negative Imperative and vice versa:

• hablar → no hables, no hable, no hablen
• comer → no comas, no coma, no coman

Chilean voseo has forms in the Present Subjunctive, so it has negative imperative forms too, but there are no affirmative imperative forms for voseo.