Imperative forms in Spanish: imperativo afirmativo (regular verbs)
You might think that using the imperative in Spanish is not really for you because these forms are just for commands, but it’s not like that. Learning how to use the imperative in Spanish is fundamental for being able to communicate naturally in this language. Knowing when and how to use it it’s crucial if you don’t want to offend the native speakers and you want to get a better grasp of the language and the Hispanic culture.
In this post you'll find:
- The conjugation of regular in imperative,
- tricks to conjugate the imperative to avoid memorization,
- many practical exercises.
Imperativo afirmativo: regular verbs (conjugation)
Before starting you should know that the imperative is not a tense, it’s a verb mood. In Spanish we have three verb moods: indicativo, subjuntivo and imperativo.
We need to learn the conjugation first and then we’ll see what we use it for in another post.
Tricks for conjugating the imperative in Spanish
If you’re struggling to remember these forms, you’ll be interested in learning some tricks to remember them more easily.
| Pronoun | Trick | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
tú |
Conjugate the verb in presente de indicativo and remove the final -s. |
PASEAR → tú paseas → pasea |
|
tú |
Conjugate the verb in the third person in singular in presente de indicativo. |
PASEAR → él / ella pasea |
|
usted |
Conjugate the verb in the third person in singular in presente de indicativo and change the final vowel: a → e / e → a |
HABLAR → él / ella habla → hable COMER / VIVIR → él / ella come / vive → coma / viva |
|
nosotros(as) |
Conjugate the verb in the first person in plural in presente de indicativo and change the vowel: a → e / e → a / i → a |
HABLAR → nosotros / nosotras hablamos → hablemos COMER / VIVIR → nosotros / nosotras comemos / vivimos → comamos / vivamos |
|
vosotros(as)
|
Take the infinitive form and replace the -r for a -d *This trick works even with irregular verbs. |
HABLAR → hablad COMER → comed VIVIR → vivid |
|
ustedes |
Add an -n to the singular form of the imperative. |
HABLAR → hable → hablen |
|
ustedes |
Conjugate the verb in the third person in plural and change the final vowel: a → e / e → a |
HABLAR → ustedes hablan → hablen COMER / VIVIR → ustedes comen / viven → coman / vivan |
It’s time to practice the regular forms with a few exercises:
Cierra, piensen y pidamos are also regular in imperativo. Why? Because to conjugate the imperative we need to look at the conjugated form of the verb in presente de indicativo, not at the infinitive form. This means that most of the irregular verbs in present tense aren’t irregular in imperativo because they have the same irregularity in both cases. The only difference is the ending which is different for present and imperative forms. Here you have some examples:
tú hablas – habla (regular)
tú cierras – cierra (regular)
Attention! Irregular verbs in presente simple such as PEDIR, MENTIR, DORMIR… which end in -ir and have one of these irregularities: E>I, E>IE o U>UE, they are also irregular in the first person in plural (nosotros) in imperativo:
Presente de indicativo Imperativo
pedimos pidamos
mentimos mintamos
dormimos durmamos
Let’s practice!
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