The Spanish Command Hack Every Beginner Needs!

[00:00:00]We've been learning a lot. We've done indicativo, we've done subjuntivo, present, past, conditional, but it's time to study imperative mood. How to command people. And this is not like in English when you say do something or don't do something. You're going to have to conjugate again and that's what I'm going to teach you in this video. A few things that you need to know when learning imperativo is that you're not going to use it for these people. You won't command the first person singular like yo, because when you're commanding you're talking to another person. Do something to you or you guys, right? And you're not commanding someone who's not in the context, is not there. You wouldn't say she do something, right? It doesn't make sense. So, in this case we're going to be working with you, the informal version, tú, also usted, the formal version of you, and then nosotros, like when you say in English, let's do something, and finally you guys go and do something, right? These are the only personal pronouns that we're going to be using. So, it's not a complete conjugation, but there's another trick. If you're saying, you go and do something like in affirmative version, write it down, eat, work, that's one thing. But if you're saying, don't do something, do not go, do not write this down, that's going to be another form, specially here for you.

[00:01:31]But let's see it. So, let's start with tú and the affirmative version of it.

[00:01:37]How do you say write this down, eat, work? It depends on the ending, it's like a conjugation for AR verbs. For example, if you're using hablar, to speak, and you want to tell someone to speak, it would be only habla.

[00:01:55]Right?

[00:01:56]So, it's like removing the r only, habla. But, another way to see it is you need to remember the third person singular of the present tense. If you say he speaks, it would be él habla. You remove the pronoun and you say only the verb, habla. And if you're telling that to someone, it's going to mean like I'm commanding you to speak, habla. So, how do you say work? Yeah, it would be trabaja. How do you say study this? It would be estudia.

[00:02:29]So, remember two ways to remember this.

[00:02:32]Remove the r and then you have the affirmative version of commanding you, or remember the third person of the present tense. He walks, it is él camina. Remove the pronoun and say camina, and it means walk. Then for er verbs, let's use comer. You lose the r and that's it, come.

[00:02:53]Right? Eat, come. Or as you can see, it's the same in the third person singular in present tense. Yo como, tú comes, él come.

[00:03:03]Remove the pronoun, use only the verb, and that's the imperativo, come. And then if you're using escribir, for example, remember the rule. Go to the present tense. Escribo, escribes, escribe, and use that form. Escribe means write as a command. Escribe.

[00:03:24]There you go.

[00:03:25]So, habla, come, escribe, for every single verb. If you have an irregular one like volver, how do you say that one in present tense? Vuelvo, the o becomes ue, and then you say vuelvo, vuelves, vuelve.

[00:03:41]That's the one you're going to use here.

[00:03:43]Vuelve, por favor. Come back.

[00:03:47]And that's the imperativo for you in the affirmative form. That rule, the one of the third person in present tense is going to apply to almost all the verb.

[00:03:56]And there's a little exception, eight verbs that doesn't follow that. Only eight verbs. Let me write them down. It would be venir, to come, decir, to say, salir, to go out, hacer, to do, tener, to have, ver, which is to see, poner, to put, and finally, ser, to be. And I put them in this order because if you put them an imperativo for you in affirmative form, it is going to be one syllable. Then, decir would be di. That's why you've heard dime, tell me, right? Salir, sal. Hacer, as like do it, hazlo.

[00:04:42]Tener, ten.

[00:04:45]Ver, to see would be ve.

[00:04:48]Poner would be pon. And ser, only one syllable as well, se. If I want to tell someone be nice, it would be sé buena persona. And a little thing here is that ver and ir, to go, have the same form and imperativo. Ve. Ve can be go there, ve a mi casa, or see that, ve eso. But in that case we're going to use mostly mira. Probably you've heard that one.

[00:05:17]Look at that, mira, right? Okay, and the reason why I put them in this order is because if you say it quickly, see what happens. And this is the way to remember that. Ven di sal as ten ve pon se. This is the hack that I like calling Vin Diesel has ten weapons. Read it quickly, Vin Diesel has ten weapons. So remember Vin Diesel has ten weapons and you're going to remember all the regular verbs for the imperative mood for you in the affirmative form. And then you practice.

[00:05:48]Okay, ven a mi casa, come to my place.

[00:05:51]Di la verdad, say the truth. So, you need to put something after. Sal de aqui, get out of here. And the same for all the verbs to practice a lot. Because something that you need to remember is that when it comes to imperativo, it's not to sound like rude. It's not only to say like do this and that's it. We use also imperativo to recommend. If I tell you like practice Spanish. I'm recommending. I'm not commanding you.

[00:06:19]Practica español, right? Because it's an AR verb. Or if I say something like if you want to learn Spanish, si quieres aprender español, estudia todos los dias, lee muchos libros, escribe en español, escucha musica. You see I'm recommending. I'm not like commanding, being rude. I'm using this form to suggest you what to do in order to improve. Also, I can say if you come to Colombia, visit us at nomadspanishmedellin.com.

[00:06:51]Visit us, that would be visitanos. And now that I said that, remember that we have a great group of teachers prepared with all the grammar and all the hacks that we have for you. So, visit us at nomadspanishmedellin.com and you'll see all the options for you to study here in Medellin or online. All right, so also recuerda, Vin Diesel has 10 weapons for the regular verbs. Now, let's see what's the negative form of you.

[00:07:18]So, when it comes to this, you need to go to the subjunctive conjugation, subjuntivo, right? And remember that in subjuntivo, the AR becomes hable, hables, hable, hablemos, hablen, right?

[00:07:32]And the ER and IR verbs are going to be coma or escriba, comas, and then coma, comamos, and coman, right? It's like they are switching in this case. In present tense, you keep the vowel, but in subjunctive in present, they switch.

[00:07:49]And this is the one that we're going to use here. If I'm telling someone do not speak, it would be no that's the don't part and then you use the subjunctive for you. No hablas. So, affirmative version would be habla, speak. But if I want to say do not speak, it would be no hablas.

[00:08:11]So now, how do you say don't eat?

[00:08:14]Think about it. You can pause the video.

[00:08:16]Yeah, it is going to be no and I'm using an ER verb, so I'm here. No comas.

[00:08:25]Then escribir would be escribe, no escribas.

[00:08:31]We have here volver, vuelve. It's an ER verb, so it would be no vuelvas.

[00:08:38]And then you're probably wondering what happened with the Vin Diesel has 10 weapons verbs. Let's see it. So, we have for venir ven and imperativo negativo would be no vengas.

[00:08:53]Because this is the form of the present tense in subjunctive for venir, to come. No vengas. Then we have decir, di, tell.

[00:09:04]So, it would be no digas. Don't say it.

[00:09:08]Don't say anything. No digas nada. Then we have salir. It would be no salgas.

[00:09:15]No salgas. Don't go out. Then we have hacer and it would be no hagas.

[00:09:23]Don't do anything. No hagas nada. You can say something extra to practice with that. Vin Diesel has 10. Then we have tener and it would be what? No tengas. And as you can see, they share something. The GAS is going to be there and it's not a coincidence because they are irregular in subjunctive. Next one, ver, which is go or see, that would be no veas. In this case it's a little bit different, no veas. And for go it would be no vayas. Don't go there and these are lesson weapons. Then poner, it goes back to the g a s, no pongas.

[00:10:04]And finally ser, which is sé, be nice, no seas. Don't be rude, it would be no seas grosero. So there you go, you have here the regular verbs in present tense and in subjunctive and also the regulars. So this is the first part of imperativo. We're going to create new videos covering the version for you formal, ustedes and nosotros. All right, remember that if you want to practice this there's a PDF that you can download. It has all the information that we have covered, the Vin Diesel rule and also a few exercises to practice. But your homework is going to be to tell me in the comment section using imperativo what I need to do in my next video. So let me know in Spanish what you want me to do and tell me as a command. We'll be reading you and we'll be checking if it's correct. And remember if you're enjoying this video like and subscribe and don't forget no olvides to visit us at nomadspanishmedellin.com where we're going to teach you real Spanish, real Medellin, nomadspanishmedellin.

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