The easiest way to learn the imperatives (or command form of the verbs in Spanish) is to break them down into positive and negative commands and formal and informal pronouns. This blog is about the positive commands such as Listen! Speak! Or learn! using 'tú' or 'vosotros'.
In English there is no difference between a singular or plural positive command. Talking to one person, you’d say, ‘Listen!’, just as you would to a group of people. However, there are singular and plural forms in Spanish.
To form a singular command (to one person) all you need to do is take the ‘s’ off the end of the verb. So, ‘escuchas’ = you listen, ‘¡escucha!’ = listen! That is the same for -er and -ir verbs. Eg, ‘¡come!’ = eat! And ‘¡vive!’ = live!
To form a command to more than one person, you need to think of the infinitive, take off the final ‘r’, and add ‘d’. So, ‘escuchar’ (to listen) would become ‘¡escuchad!’, ‘comer’ (to eat) would become ‘comed’ and ‘vivir’ (to live) would become ‘vivid’.
And of course, there are some irregular imperatives, but luckily only in the singular and fortunately not too many!
Infinitve - imperative - English
Decir - di - say!
Hacer - haz - do/make!
Oír - oye - hear!
Poner - pon - put!
Salir - sal - go out!
Saber - sé - know!
Tener - ten - have!
Venir - ven - come!
Ver - ve - see!
So, how are you feeling about imperatives now! Comenta abajo para decirmelo.
Gracias,
Angela
