Different Ways of Creating Imperatives

Imperatives are used to give orders or commands and have a specific conjugation. However, today we will review two ways to give commands without using 'los mandatos.'

A Brief Review of Mandatos

Before starting with the topic, it is important that we do a brief review of the mandatos in Spanish.

Formal mandatos

Rule 1. Formal commands are used with people you would address with usted. To form these commands, drop the -o from the present tense first person (yo), and add the following endings:

Informal mandatos

Rule 2. Informal commands are used with people you would address with tú. To form the affirmative informal commands, use the third-person singular (él/ella) of the present tense.

Commands in Phrases

Rule 3. There is another way of expressing commands, and it is when they are used with the preposition a. This type of command is given in situations where there is a group of people. That is, it serves as a general command.

It is used with the following phrase:

a + infinitive verb form

Rule 4. The present subjunctive can be used as a form of imperative as well. In this case, you would sound firmer and more direct than with regular imperatives. To express this function, use the following construction:

que + indirect object pronoun + verb in present subjunctive (2nd person)

Now you know the four ways in which you can make commands in Spanish.