Purpose

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to form affirmative and negative commands for tú, usted, and vosotros/ustedes.

Lesson Explanation

Spanish commands genuinely differ by formality, drawing on the tú/usted distinction covered fully in Part 6, Lesson 3. Affirmative tú commands for regular verbs use the same form as the present-tense él/ella conjugation: ¡Habla!(hablar) (Speak!)

Affirmative usted commands borrow from the present subjunctive (previewed here, covered fully in the next lesson) — “flipped” endings where -ar verbs take -e and -er/-ir verbs take -a: ¡Hable!(hablar) (Speak! — usted.)

A genuinely important, distinct set: irregular affirmative tú commands: di (say), haz (do), ve (go), pon (put), sal (leave), sé (be), ten (have), ven (come).

Object and reflexive pronouns (Part 2, Lessons 3-4) attach directly to the end of affirmative commands: ¡Hazlo!(hacer + lo) (Do it!), ¡Levántate!(levantarse) (Get up!) — note the added written accent to preserve the original stress.

A genuinely important contrast: negative commands (for all persons) use the subjunctive form (not the same construction as the affirmative tú command), and pronouns move BEFORE the verb instead of attaching after it — mirroring the negative-command pronoun placement rule already seen for French in an earlier-built Gabal course: ¡No lo hagas!(hacer, subjunctive) (Don’t do it! — “lo” now precedes the verb, unlike the affirmative ¡Hazlo!) ¡No te levantes! (Don’t get up!)

Practice Questions