El Imperativo

The core idea

The imperativo gives orders, instructions, directions and advice. The catch: affirmative and negative commands are formed differently, and only in the tú and vosotros forms. Get that distinction and the rest falls into place.

Affirmative tú — the easy one

Take the third person singular of the present tense and you're done. él habla → ¡Habla!

Affirmative tú

Infinitive	él/ella present	¡Command!
hablar	habla	¡Habla!
comer	come	¡Come!
vivir	vive	¡Vive!
cerrar	cierra	¡Cierra!
volver	vuelve	¡Vuelve!

The eight irregular tú commands

Eight verbs break the rule. They're all extremely common, so they're worth memorising as a block — many learners use the mnemonic "Ten ven, di sal, haz sé ve pon."

Irregular affirmative tú

Verb	Command	Verb	Command
tener	ten	hacer	haz
venir	ven	ser	sé
decir	di	ir	ve
salir	sal	poner	pon

Negative tú — a completely different form

For no + command, you can't just add "no" to the affirmative. You need the subjunctive form: take the yo form of the present, drop the -o, and add the opposite endings — -es for -ar verbs, -as for -er/-ir verbs.

Affirmative vs. negative tú

Verb	¡Sí!	¡No!
hablar	habla	no hables
comer	come	no comas
vivir	vive	no vivas
hacer	haz	no hagas
ir	ve	no vayas
ser	sé	no seas
tener	ten	no tengas
poner	pon	no pongas

Usted, ustedes and nosotros

These use the same form whether affirmative or negative — which makes them much simpler than tú.

All persons

Person	hablar	comer	vivir
tú (+)	habla	come	vive
tú (−)	no hables	no comas	no vivas
usted	hable	coma	viva
nosotros	hablemos	comamos	vivamos
vosotros (+)	hablad	comed	vivid
vosotros (−)	no habléis	no comáis	no viváis
ustedes	hablen	coman	vivan

🔎

Vosotros affirmative is the one truly easy form: take the infinitive and swap the final -r for -d. hablar → hablad, comer → comed, venir → venid. No exceptions worth worrying about.

Where the pronouns go

This is the other half of the rule, and it mirrors the first: affirmative commands attach the pronoun to the end; negative commands put it before the verb.

Dime la verdad. / No me digas nada.Tell me the truth. / Don't tell me anything.

Levántate. / No te levantes.Get up. / Don't get up.

Dámelo. / No me lo des.Give it to me. / Don't give it to me.

Siéntese, por favor.Please sit down. — usted

💡

Watch the written accent. Attaching pronouns makes the word longer, so you often need an accent to keep the original stress: da → dámelo, levanta → levántate, siente → siéntese. The spoken stress never moves — the accent just marks where it already was.

🌎

Softening the order. A bare imperative can sound abrupt. Native speakers constantly soften it with por favor, or sidestep it entirely with the conditional you learned in lesson 5: ¿Podrías cerrar la puerta? instead of Cierra la puerta.