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The following Spanish tutorial was written by a soon to be graduate student in linguistics named Jennifer Wagner, who runs a fantastic website called Indo-European Languages - ielanguages.com. We thank her for generously allowing us to post her work here! |
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38. Spanish Command Verbs
To form familiar commands, regular -ar verbs end in -a, and -er and -ir verbs end in -e for the tú form. Change the final -r to -d for the vosotros form. Negative familiar commands use the subjunctive forms, so -ar verbs end in -es and -éis, while -er and -ir verbs end in -as and -áis for the tú and vosotros forms.
| Affirmative | Negative | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -ar | -er or -ir | -ar | -er or -ir | ||
| tú | -a | -e | -es | -as | |
| vosotros | -ad | -ed | -éis | -áis | |
Habla! = Speak! (tú form)
Comed! = Eat! (vosotros form)
No comáis! = Don't eat! (negative vosotros form)
| tú | vosotros | |
| decir hacer ir irse poner salir ser tener venir |
di haz ve vete pon sal sé ten ven |
decid haced id idos poned salid sed tened venid |
To form formal commands of verbs, drop the -o ending of the yo form, and add the opposite vowel ending. This means -ar verbs will add -e for the Usted form and -en for the Ustedes form; while -er and -ir verbs will add -a for Usted and -an for Ustedes. To make a command negative, just add no before it.
| -ar | -er or -ir | |
|---|---|---|
| Usted | -e | -a |
| Ustedes | -en | -an |
Beba! = Drink! (Usted form)
Coman! = Eat (Ustedes form)
No beban! = Don't drink! (negative Ustedes form)
Ir and ser have irregular forms as formal commands: vaya and vayan for ir and sea and sean for ser.
Verbs that end in -car, -gar and -zar have the following changes in commands as well: c becomes qu, g becomes gu, and z becomes c.
For a detailed tutorial about Spanish Commands w/ Audio & Worksheets, check out the Musical Spanish Grammar Tutorial |
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