Spanish Commands Chart: Every Form and Rule

Affirmative tú commands

An affirmative tú command is the él/ella form of the present tense, the form for “he” or “she”: habla, come, escribe. Tú is the “you” for one person you know well, such as a friend. Stem changes carry over, so pensar gives piensa and dormir gives duerme.

The table shows the pattern. Of the 494 verbs in our commands quiz, 17 have a tú command that isn't the él/ella present. They're the eight irregular tú commands and the verbs built on them, in the next section.

The eight irregular tú commands

Eight verbs have a short tú command of their own: decir gives di, hacer haz, ir ve, poner pon, salir sal, ser sé, tener ten and venir ven. The table lists all eight.

Verbs built on them follow the same pattern, with a written accent where the stress needs one: mantener gives mantén, detener detén, obtener obtén, suponer supón, proponer propón and deshacer deshaz.

A classroom mnemonic holds all eight: “Vin Diesel has ten weapons,” for ven, di, sal, haz, ten, ve, pon and sé. Two of them share their spelling with other words. Ve is also the tú command of ver, and sé is also “I know.” The rest of the sentence tells you which one is meant.

Negative tú commands

A negative tú command takes a different form: no plus the present subjunctive. Regular -ar verbs switch their vowel to e (no hables), and -er and -ir verbs switch it to a (no comas, no escribas). Verbs with a spelling change keep the sound of the consonant: no busques, no llegues, no empieces.

The eight irregular verbs use their subjunctive too, and the short form disappears in the negative: no digas, no hagas, no vayas, no pongas, no salgas, no seas, no tengas and no vengas.

Formal commands: usted and ustedes

Usted is the formal “you” for one person, and ustedes is the plural. Everywhere in Latin America, ustedes is the word for “you all,” with friends as well as strangers. Both use the present subjunctive, and the negative is the same form with no in front: hable and no hable, hablen and no hablen.

To make the form, start from the yo form of the present, the form for “I”: tengo gives tenga, pienso gives piense and conozco gives conozca. Spelling changes keep the sound of the consonant: buscar gives busque, llegar llegue and empezar empiece. The Spanish verb types guide explains these changes.

Five verbs don't follow the yo form: ser gives sea, ir vaya, saber sepa, dar dé and estar esté. The table gives the usted and ustedes forms.

Nosotros commands: “let's”

A nosotros command means “let's”: hablemos is “let's talk” and comamos is “let's eat.” It's the present subjunctive, and the negative adds no to the same form. Ir is the exception. “Let's go” is vamos, but the negative is no vayamos. Stem-changing -ir verbs change here too: dormir gives durmamos and pedir gives pidamos.

Vosotros commands (Spain)

Vosotros is the “you all” of Spain. Its affirmative command is the infinitive with -d in place of the final -r: hablad, comed, id. The negative is no plus the subjunctive: no habléis, no comáis. With os, the -d drops: sentaos, levantaos. Verbs in -ir then write an accent on the i, as in vestíos and divertíos. Irse is the exception and keeps its d, so the command is idos, though iros is common in speech.

If you're learning the Spanish of Latin America, you can leave this section for later, since ustedes covers “you all” there.

Commands with pronouns: where they go

Pronouns join the end of an affirmative command and go before a negative one: dímelo, but no me lo digas. In dímelo, me is “to me” and lo is “it.” With more than one pronoun, the reflexive comes first, then the indirect (to whom), then the direct (what): póntelo, dímelo.

Joining pronouns adds syllables at the end. When the stressed syllable ends up third from the end or earlier, write an accent on it. Di becomes dime and then dímelo, compra becomes cómpralo, and sienta becomes siéntate. A one-syllable command with one pronoun needs no accent: dime, hazlo, ponte. Dé goes the other way and loses its accent: deme. The table adds the pronouns one at a time, with the syllables of the two-pronoun form.

Le and les become se

Before lo, la, los or las, le and les become se. Dale el libro, “give him the book,” turns into dáselo once el libro becomes lo. The same happens in negative and formal commands: no se lo digas, dígaselo.

Nosotros drops its -s before nos and se

A nosotros command loses its final -s before nos and se. Vamos + nos gives vámonos, “let's leave,” and sentemos + nos gives sentémonos, “let's sit down.” With two pronouns, digamos + se + lo gives digámoselo.

Practice Spanish commands

The Spanish commands quiz drills these forms one at a time. You choose the persons, affirmative or negative, the number of pronouns and the verb sets, and after every answer a one-line reason gives the rule. For a class, the Spanish commands worksheets print four exercises, from writing the command to a fill-in chart, with an answer key on its own page. Start with tú and the eight irregular commands, then add one pronoun, and then two. Every form of the 600 verbs behind them is in the Spanish verb conjugation tables.

Frequently asked questions

Licenses and credits

Conjugation tables come from English Wiktionary through kaikki.org (CC BY-SA 4.0). Verbs are ranked by Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords list, built from OpenSubtitles 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).