Tú commands

We can think of the formation of the Tú commands one of two ways:

1) In the affirmative commands you use the 3rd person (él, ella, usted) singular present tense;

- or -

2) In the affirmative commands you use the regular Tú present tense form, but drop the "s".

Let's look at how to form an affirmative Tú command:

Infinitive	Tú command
Comer	Come
Hablar	Habla
Escribir	Escribe
Leer	Lee
Apagar	Apaga

Not too difficult!
And there are only 8 (eight!) irregular affirmative Tú commands:

Decir	Di
Hacer	Haz
Ir	Ve
Ser	Sé
Poner	Pon
Venir	Ven
Tener	Ten
Salir	Sal

Forming the negative commands in the Informal is a bit trickier. It is the same forming as the Tú Present Subjunctive and similar to the Formal commands except that we add an "s".
Let's take a look. To form the negative Tú commands, you need to first remember how to form the First Person Singular (Yo ) in the Present Tense.

Remember if the Yo form is irregular, the command will be irregular. Let's try using Hacer. First we start with the infinitive of Hacer:

Hacer - we need to conjugate it in the first person:	Hago
Now let's drop the o so we are left with	Hag-
Now we add the opposite ending* which for Hacer is "-as", and add No [because we are making a negative command]	And we now have our negative Tú command: No hagas

*By opposite ending we mean add the vowel ending of the other type verb: For verbs that end in "-ar", we add "-es" instead of "-as" and for verbs that end in "-er/-ir", we add "-as" instead of "-es"
.
All of the eight irregular affirmative commands follow the above pattern in the negative commands.

Tell the truth!	¡Di la verdad!
Don't tell the truth!	¡No digas la verdad!
Come here!	¡Ven acá!
Don't come here!	¡No vengas acá!
Get out of the car!	¡Sal del carro!
Don't get out of the car!	¡No salgas del carro!
Be careful!	¡Ten cuidado!
Don't be careful!	¡No tengas cuidado!
Put it on the table!	¡Ponlo en la mesa!
Don't put it on the table!	¡No lo pongas en la mesa!
Do it!	¡Hazlo!
Don't do it!	¡No lo hagas!
Be nice!	¡Sé simpático!
Don't be rude!	¡No seas grosero!
Get out of here!	¡Vete!
Don't go!	¡No te vayas!

Practice tú commands, including negative forms, object pronouns and reflexive verbs!		Back to the Verbs Page
More Practice!	Practice with affirmative and negative commands!