Spanish Commands: The Complete Guide

Ask a friend in Mexico City to slow down and you won't hear tú manejas más despacio — you'll just hear Maneja más despacio (Drive slower), no tú required. That's the Spanish imperative mood at work: the form you reach for constantly, in recipes, driving directions, doctor's instructions, and every time you tell someone what to do. Get comfortable with it, and a huge chunk of real, spoken Spanish stops sounding like a puzzle you have to solve mid-sentence.

Why Spanish Commands Trip Up English Speakers

English gives commands by simply dropping the subject: close the door, turn left, wait here. Spanish does something similar, but the verb ending itself has to change depending on exactly who you're commanding — a friend (tú), a stranger or elder you address formally (usted), a group (ustedes), or even yourself and others together (nosotros, roughly "let's"). Worse, the form flips entirely depending on whether the command is affirmative or negative: Habla (Speak) and No hables (Don't speak) don't share a single ending.

This shows up constantly in real Spanish: a barista telling you Espere aquí (Wait here), a recipe instructing Agregue la sal (Add the salt), a friend texting Llámame (Call me). Learn the system once, properly, and you'll recognize — and produce — commands automatically instead of translating them in your head one at a time.

Informal Commands: Tú

When you're talking to someone you'd address as tú — a friend, a family member, a kid — the affirmative command borrows a form you already know: the él/ella present-tense conjugation.

Grammar Note

• hablar (to speak) → ¡Habla! (Speak!) — same as él habla
• comer (to eat) → ¡Come! (Eat!) — same as él come
• escribir (to write) → ¡Escribe! (Write!) — same as él escribe

Eight common verbs break that pattern with their own short, irregular forms, worth memorizing as a set:

• decir (to say) → di
• hacer (to do/make) → haz
• ir (to go) → ve
• poner (to put) → pon
• salir (to leave) → sal
• ser (to be) → sé
• tener (to have) → ten
• venir (to come) → ven

Common mistakes:

• Regularizing an irregular command, saying hace instead of haz, or pone instead of pon — these look like they should follow the él/ella pattern, but they don't.
• Confusing sé (the command form of ser) with se, the reflexive pronoun — they're spelled identically except for the accent mark, and the accent is what tells them apart.

Formal Commands: Usted and Ustedes

Address someone formally — a stranger, an elder, a boss, anyone you wouldn't casually tú — and the command form changes completely. Both usted (you, formal singular) and ustedes (you all, used across Latin America for any group regardless of formality) use the present subjunctive, not the present indicative.

Key Phrases

• Hable más despacio, por favor (AH-bleh mahs dess-PAH-see-oh) — Speak more slowly, please (usted)
• Espere un momento (ess-PEH-reh oon moh-MEN-toh) — Wait a moment (usted)
• Tomen asiento (TOH-men ah-see-EN-toh) — Take a seat (ustedes)
• No fumen aquí (noh FOO-men ah-KEE) — Don't smoke here (ustedes)
• Firme aquí, por favor (FEER-meh ah-KEE) — Sign here, please (usted)

[AUDIO: Hable más despacio, por favor] [AUDIO: Tomen asiento] [AUDIO: Firme aquí, por favor]

To build one, take the yo form of the present tense, drop the -o, and add the opposite-vowel ending: -ar verbs take -e/-en, -er/-ir verbs take -a/-an. Hablar → hablo → habl- → hable/hablen. Comer → como → com- → coma/coman. Verbs irregular in the yo form carry that irregularity straight into the command: tener → tengo → tenga/tengan; decir → digo → diga/digan.

In Spain, ustedes is reserved for strict formality, with vosotros covering informal you-all instead — its own command form (hablad, comed) is worth knowing if you're headed there, though this guide sticks to the tú/usted/ustedes system used consistently across Latin America.

Turning a Command Negative

Negative commands never use the same form as their affirmative twin for tú — this is the single biggest trap in the whole system. For tú, drop the informal form entirely and reach for the present subjunctive instead, the exact same form usted already uses: Habla becomes No hables; Come becomes No comas; even the irregular affirmatives disappear — Ve (Go) becomes No vayas, not No ves.

• hablar: Habla → No hables
• comer: Come → No comas
• hacer: Haz → No hagas
• ir: Ve → No vayas

Usted and ustedes commands don't change shape at all between affirmative and negative — just add no in front: Espere → No espere; Tomen asiento → No tomen asiento.

Where Do the Pronouns Go?

Object and reflexive pronouns move depending on whether the command is affirmative or negative, and this trips up even intermediate learners.

Grammar Note

• In an affirmative command, pronouns attach to the end of the verb, often adding a written accent to keep the original stress in place: dime (tell me) plus lo becomes dímelo (tell it to me); levanta (get up) plus te becomes levántate (get up, reflexive).
• In a negative command, pronouns move in front of the verb instead, completely unattached: No me lo digas (Don't tell it to me); No te levantes (Don't get up).
• When stacking two pronouns, the indirect object always comes before the direct object: me lo, te lo, se lo — never the reverse.

Common mistakes:

• Forgetting the accent mark after attaching a pronoun, which silently shifts where the stress falls: dime is two syllables stressed on di-, but dimelo without the accent would incorrectly sound stressed on -me-.
• Attaching the pronoun in a negative command anyway — No dímelo is never correct; negative commands always keep pronouns separate and in front.

Putting Commands to Work in a Real Conversation

Commands rarely show up alone — they show up mid-conversation, often stacked. At a pharmacy in Bogotá, the pharmacist might say Tome una pastilla cada ocho horas y no la tome con el estómago vacío (Take one pill every eight hours and don't take it on an empty stomach) — two usted commands, one affirmative and one negative, back to back. At home, a parent might switch to tú entirely: Lávate las manos y ven a comer (Wash your hands and come eat) — a reflexive affirmative command followed by an irregular one.

Next time you're giving directions, following a recipe, or telling a friend what to do, run through the same two-step check every time: who am I talking to — tú, usted, or ustedes — and is this affirmative or negative? That pair of answers picks the exact ending you need.

Practice Exercises

• Fill in the blank (hablar, tú, affirmative): ___ más despacio, por favor.
• Fill in the blank (comer, usted, negative): No ___ tan rápido.
• Multiple choice: which is the correct informal command for hacer — a) hace b) haz
• Translate to Spanish using usted: Wait here.
• Translate to Spanish using tú, attaching the pronoun correctly: Tell me! (using decir plus me)
• True or false: ustedes commands use a different form for affirmative and negative.

Answer Key

• Habla más despacio, por favor.
• No coma tan rápido.
• b) haz — hace would incorrectly follow the regular él/ella pattern.
• Espere aquí.
• ¡Dime! — the pronoun me attaches to the end of the affirmative command, with an accent to preserve the stress.
• False — ustedes commands keep the same form in both; only no is added for the negative.

Key Takeaways

• Affirmative tú commands borrow the él/ella present-tense form, except for eight irregular verbs (di, haz, ve, pon, sal, sé, ten, ven) worth memorizing as a set.
• Usted, ustedes, and every negative tú command all use the present subjunctive — learn that one form, and you've covered most of the system.
• Pronouns attach to the end of affirmative commands (with an accent to keep the stress) and move in front, unattached, for negative ones.

Ready to make commands automatic? Try narrating your next five minutes of chores or cooking out loud in Spanish, giving yourself a command for each step — or head to Passage's Grammar section to drill the subjunctive forms these commands lean on.