Affirmative Tú Commands (Mandatos Informales Afirmativos)

El imperativo (Los mandatos)

When we tell someone what to do we call this the imperative (imperativo) or commands (mandatos). Since it is a command we address the person directly. Remember in Spanish we either address a person formally (usted) or informally (tú). When we command more than one person we use ‘ustedes’ which fits into the formal commands. We have talked about affirmative commands and negative commands; this simply means if it is affirmative we are telling someone to do something and the negative tells someone not to do something.

Now that we have covered both the ‘tú’ commands and the formal commands we can review the forms by remembering this rule: Affirmative ‘tú’ commands follow one pattern and everything else is ‘yo-drop-swap’.

Affirmative ‘tú’ Commands (Mandatos informales afirmativos) Regular verbs—(Tú – drop ‘s’) --Take the regular ‘tú’ form and drop the ‘-s’:  hablas  habla / miras  mira  comes  come / aprendes  aprende  abres abre / escribes  escribe

‘-go’ verbs— (Yo – drop ‘go’) --Take the ‘-go’ form and drop the ‘-go’:  pongo  pon  tengo  ten  digo  di  vengo  ven  traigo  trae (acts like a regular verb)  salgo  sal  hago  haz (a little irregular) Irregular verbs— --These verbs just need to be memorized:  ir ve  ser sé

Negative ‘tú’ commands / Formal Commands (Ud. & Uds.) Yo  Drop  Swap Mandatos informales negativos Hablo  habl-  No hables / Como com-  No comas / Abro  abr-  No abras Hago  hag-  No hagas / Vengo  veng-  No vengas / Digo  dig-  No digas Ir  No vayas / Ser  No seas Mandatos formales afirmativos y negativos Hablo habl- (No) hable / Bebo  beb-  beba / Escribo  Escrib-  (No) escriba Tengo  teng-  (No) tenga / Salgo  salg-  (No) salga Empiezo  Empiez-  Empiece / Juego  jueg- (No) juegue /Busco  busc-  (No) busque Ir  (No) vaya Ser  (No) sea

For the plural formal commands (UDS.) just add the ‘-n’ to the formal commands above:  hable (No) hablen / abra  (No) abran / traiga  (No) traigan / vaya  (No) vayan

Pronoun Placement –Review Remember object pronouns (me, lo, les, se, etc.) generally precede the verb. Examples: Yo lo hablo muy bien. / Juan me ayudó con la tarea. /