Tú Commands

Tú commands are actually very easy to form. But the big thing to remember is that affirmative commands are very different from negative commands.

Affirmative Commands

A tú affirmative command is just the 3rd person singular indicative form of the verb:

hablo hablamos como comemos vivo vivimos

hablas habláis comes coméis vives vivís

habla hablan come comen vive vivenhabla come vive

So to form an affirmative command, just go to the 3rd person singular . . .

. . . except for the irregulars:

salir sal poner pondecir di hacer hazser sé ir vevenir ven tener ten

So for “salir,” for example, you don’t go

salgosalessale

The tú command of “salir” is “sal” because it’s irregular.

NO!!!

NO!!!

NO!!!

NO!!!

Click here to go to a brief practice exercise.

One more thing about tú affirmative commands: you have to put object pronouns on the END.

come eat cómelo eat it

haz make hazlas make them

sienta seat siéntate sit down

lee read léele read to him

A note about accent marks

There are two rules for accentuation in Spanish:

1. If the word ends in vowel, -n, or –s, the stress falls on the next-to-last syllable.

hombre interesante comen comemos trabajas muchacho

2. If the word ends in anything else, the stess falls on the last syllable.

comenzar mujer feliz usted reloj insistir pared

3. If either rule is broken, there’s a written accent mark. Rule 1 broken Rule 2 broken

montón interés jabalí espíritu – árbol Pérez carácter

Now you have another rule of accentuation to consider: whenever you add something to the base (masculine singular form of an adjective, singular of a noun, simple verb form), you have to keep the stress where it is. In some cases, that means taking an accent mark off:

alemán

If you add something to the masculine singular form, you want to keep the stress where it originally was, so when we make the above word plural or feminine, we want to keep the stress on the “a”:

alemana alemanes alemanas

In “alemán,” rule 1 is broken, and we need an accent mark. But whenever we add –a, -es, or –as to it, rule 1 says that now the accent should fall on the –a, which is where we want it, since that’s where it is in the masculine singular. So we take off the accent mark.

The same will hold true for any word ending in –ón:

composición – composiciones millón – millones lección – lecciones

The opposite is true for words like “joven.” According to rule 1, the stress falls on the –o. No problem—it does. But when we make it plural, we want the stress to remain on the –o:

jóvenes

Rule 1 says that the stress in “jóvenes” should fall on the first –e. But we want it to fall where it did in the singular form, so we have to add an accent mark.

So what does this have to do with tú commands, you ask. Let’s look at a tú command:

come

According to rule 1, the stress falls on the –o. No problem. If we add anything to it, like a pronoun (which is actually the only thing we CAN add to it), we have to keep the stress on the –o:

cómelo

Rule 1 tells us that in the above word, the stress should fall on the –e, which is now the next-to-last syllable. But we want it on the –o, where it was originally. So we have to put an accent mark on it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Remember how I told you that negative tú commands are totally different from affirmative tú commands? The good news is that you’ve already learned how to form negative tú commands. The bad news is that it’s the subjunctive:

no hables no comas no salgas

no digas no vuelvas no vayas

Click here if you want to go to the Power Point on forming the subjunctive.

One more thing about negative tú commands: object pronouns come BEFORE them.

No me hables.

No te levantes.

No lo leas.

This is actually true of ALL commands:

Object pronouns come on the END of affirmative commands.

Object pronouns come BEFORE negative commands.

To sum up:

Tú affirmative commands are the 3rd person singular indicative present:

habla come trae

Tú negative commands are the 2nd person singular subjunctive present:

no hables no comas no traigas

Pronouns go on the end of affirmative commands:

tráigalo

Pronouns go BEFORE negative commands:

no lo traigas

There are eight irregular AFFIRMATIVE commands. When those commands become negative, they’re the subjunctive, just like all other negative commands:

sal -- no salgas pon -- no pongas haz – no hagas

Click here to go to your homework.