⇒ There are many different types of Spanish commands, including negative tú commands, formal commands, indirect commands, nosotros commands, and affirmative tú commands.

⇒ We'll focus on affirmative tú commands in this article, so ¡ponte listo! (look sharp!)

⇒ Tú commands are the singular form of informal commands.

⇒ You can use affirmative tú commands to tell a friend, family member the same age as you or younger, classmate, child, or pet to do something.

⇒ To tell somebody not to do something, you would use a negative tú command.

⇒ These notes cover affirmative tú commands (also called the informal imperative) in all their forms.

Affirmative Tú Command:

Negative Tú Command:

⇒ For verbs that end in -ar, add the third-person singular ending -a to the stem

⇒ For verbs that end in -er and -ir, add the third-person singular ending -e to the stem

⇒ For verbs with stem changes or spelling changes in the present tense, the stem or spelling change also applies to the informal command form. Here are some examples of these types of verbs.

⇒ All verbs with irregular third-person singular forms in the present tense maintain that same irregularity in the affirmative informal command, except for the following eight verbs, which have special irregular affirmative command forms.

⇒ Pronouns are attached to the end of affirmative commands

⇒ A written accent (tilde) is often added to maintain the verb's original stress, especially if more than one pronoun is used.

⇒ Because informal tú commands take the same form as the third-person singular of the present tense, it is helpful to include exclamation points to indicate urgency.

⇒ You can also include the name of the person you are commanding, followed by a comma.

⇒ Without the comma, an imperative verb could be confused with a third-person singular present verb.

⇒ Compare the following sentences, paying careful attention to the different punctuation.

⇒ As you can see, punctuation can really change how a sentence is interpreted.