Because the last chapter was a bit rough, I'll try to make this one a bit smoother. We'll be taking a bit of a break from Subjunctive for a while to focus on the conditional, conditional perfect, and non-auxiliary forms of the verb haber. The imperative mood is one of the three moods of Spanish we discussed in the last chapter; the other two are indicative (referring to what definitely happened) and subjunctive (what uncertainly happened). The imperative is you or another person telling someone to carry out an action.
The imperative has two types of commands: formal and informal commands. Formal commands are for when you are addressing someone in a formal setting (duh) or someone you respect. It generally goes along with the usted pronoun. Informal commands are....say it with me class....used in an informal setting! We'll go over them briefly.
For formal commands, the conjugation is either the present Subjunctive conjugations for él, ella, and ud., UNLESS you are addressing more than one person. In that case, you use the conjugations for ellos, ellas, and ustedes. Here are some examples:
Hable, por favor. ｜Speak, please.
Beba algo agua. ｜Drink some water.
¡Limpien sus habitaciones! ｜Clean your rooms!
Estén feliz, por favor. ｜Be happy, please.
With informal commands, the conjugation is simply the present indicative conjugations for él, ella, and ud., unless you are addressing more than one person, in which case the conjugation for ellos, ellas, and ustedes is used. Examples:
Mi amiga, por favor sonría, porque eres bonita. ｜My friend, please smile, for you are beautiful.
No bebe agua ahora. ｜Do not drink water right now.
Escuchan, todos. ｜Listen, everybody.
Comen su comida, estudiantes. ｜Eat your food, students.
Lastly, there's something I want to address. I did some research on this concept because I wasn't sure what it was called, but I still can't find anything on it - let me know in the comments if you know the formal name for this concept, but I'll call them "object commands". They are commands like "Talk to me", "listen to her", and things like that. So how do we use these in Spanish? In most cases, you will tack the object pronoun onto the end of the conjugated imperative verb. For example:
Perdónanos｜Pardon us.
There are obviously exceptions, as with any evolved language, but that's okay. Just look them up or memorize the most common of them. Now, of course, if you have any questions.....¡háblame! 😜
YOU ARE READING
Language Bites, Volume I: Spanish ✔
Non-FictionEver wanted to learn Spanish? Are you stuck on past tense preterite, are you tired of stupid teaching methods, or needed to practice your vocabulary? What about strengthening your conversational skills through interacting online with real people who...
