Imperative Commands Spanish Verb Conjugation

Welcome to the Spanish commands section of the course. You use commands when you tell people to do things like, “Come here”, “Sign here”, “Don’t tell her” or “Use this one”. When you hear “commands” you might think they are harsh and dictatorial. However, we use them every day and they can be very soft and subtle. In fact, you can use a command with “Please” to soften it a little. For example, “Please send that to me when you get a chance”.

Commands

Welcome to the commands section of the course. You use commands when you tell people to do things like, “Come here”, “Sign here”, “Don’t tell her” or “Use this one”. When you hear “commands” you might think they are harsh and dictatorial. However, we use them every day and they can be very soft and subtle. In fact, you can use a command with “Please” to soften it a little. For example, you could say “Please send that to me when you get a chance”.

Commands are used when I am talking to “you”. A command can be used with any of the forms of “you”. This lesson covers commands when talking to “Ud.” or “Uds”. Remember, you use Ud. and Uds. when you would use a title with someone.

To form a command, all you do is take the root of the verb and put on the opposite ending.

The opposite endings for “ar verbs” would be the “er/ir” endings, and the opposite endings for “er/ir” verbs would be the “ar” endings. For example, if I wanted to tell “you” to “eat”. I would take the root of the verb “comer” and since “comer” is an “er” verb, I would use the “ar” ending for “Ud.” So, for Ud. or the formal way of saying “you”, “eat” would be “coma”. And for “You plural” or “all of you” it would be “coman”. Remember, if I wanted to soften it up a little bit, I could say, “Coman por favor”.

Now, let’s try an “ar” ending verb. If I wanted to tell “you” to help me and “you” are a doctor, since “ayudar” is an “ar” verb, we take the opposite ending which would be an “e” (arrow to the “e”), and put it on. So, “help” would be “ayude”. And if I was talking to all of you, I would say “ayuden”.

Let’s try a few of these. Remember, if it’s an “ar” verb, you use the “er/ir” endings and if it’s an “er/ir” verb, you use the “ar” endings.

Now, there are just a few things to hit before we continue. If you want to form a negative command, you simply put the “no” before the command. For example, “Don’t look” would be “No mire”, and “Don’t open this” would be “No abra esto”. The final item in this lesson is that “pronouns” as usual in Spanish are optional. However, when used, they go after the verbs. For example, “Don’t look” would be “No mire Ud.” (add the “Ud.” on the end). And “Don’t open this” would be "No abra Ud. esto" (add the “Ud.” on the end).

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