Los mandatos informalesInformal CommandsVen conmigo 2, Cap. 5

When you want to tell someone what to do: You need to be able to make a

command. In English, a command is when you tell

someone, “Sit down.”, “Don’t smoke.”, etc.

To make an informal (tú) positive command in Spanish: For regular commands: Take the tú form. Drop the “s”. For example: Hablas►habla

Comes►comeDuermes►duerme

You may notice this is the same as the 3rd person singular form (él/ella/usted)

Práctica

1. Sleep now!

¡Duerme ahora!

2. Speak! ¡Habla!

Irregular positive“tú” commands: Unfortunately,

there is a list! They correspond

to verbs that have an irregular “yo” form:

There is a pattern: Ten Ven Pon Sal Haz Di Sé Ve

Tener (tengo) Venir (vengo) Poner (pongo) Salir (salgo) Hacer (hago) Decir (digo) Ser (soy) Ir (voy)

Luckily, there is also a song: It goes to the tune of

“Hava Nagila”, the Jewish wedding song. Remember from Wedding Crashers?

The words are:

Ten Ven Pon Sal Haz Repeat Di Sé Ve

Now for negative “tú” commands: There are a couple

of easy rules: Take the “yo” Drop the “o” Add the opposite

ending. Put a “no” in front

and an “s” at the end.

(The opposite ending is an “e” for –ar verbs and “a” for –er & –ir verbs.

Por ejemplo

Hablar►hablo► Habl► Hable► ¡No hables!

Comer►como► Com► Coma► ¡ No comas!

Asistir ►asisto► Asist► Asista► ¡No asistas!

A couple of notes: When the command is

positive, and the verb is reflexive, the reflexive pronoun is placed at the end, hanging on to the command.

First conjugate the verb into a command, then put the pronoun at the end.

Relajarse► Relaja► ¡Relájate!

For negative commands with reflexives: The reflexive

pronoun goes BEFORE the conjugated verb.

Relajarse► Relajo► Relaj► Relaje► No relajes…and

finally: ¡No te relajes!

Más cap. 5 vocabulario Ponerse en forma fumar

El bienestar (estar bien, sano, contento)

dedicar

Entrenarse para la competencia

El estrés

Evitar la grasa El hábito

Hacer régimen Mantenerse en forma

relajarse

Respirar profundamente

La salud

dejar

Más práctica 3. Don’t smoke! ¡No fumes!

4. Relax!

¡Relájate!

5. Don’t go on a diet!

5. No hagas régimen!

6. Avoid grease! 6. Evita la grasa!

6a. Avoid sugar! (el azucar)

¡Evita el azucar!

7. Don’t avoid vegetables! (Remember, take the yo – evito, drop the “o” - evit, add the opposite ending (e for an –ar verb), put “s” at the end and “no” in front.)

7. No evites los vegetales!

8. Breathe deeply!

8. Respira profundamente!

8a. Don’t sleep deeply!(Take the yo – duermo , drop the o – duerm, add the opposite ending (a for an –ir verb) + s at the end and no in front)

!No duermas profundamente!

Mandatos con –car, -gar, zar Remember –car, -

gar, -zar verbs in the preterite? Well when a verb ends with –car, -gar, or –zar, there is a spelling change in the negative tú command as well.

Just like in the preterite, the spelling change is to preserve the sound of the command.

-car verbs: Practicar: If you

want to make the command negative, you have to follow the same rules:

Take the “yo” Drop the “o” Add the opposite

ending. Put a “no” in front

and an “s” at the end.

To avoid saying, “no practices”(where the c makes the s sound), you need to change the c to que:

No practiques. This preserves the

hard c sound of practicar, instead of the soft c that you hear in the word cine.

The same is true for –gar verbs.

No avoid saying, “no jueges”, you change g to gu to maintain the hard g sound.

No juegues.

There is also a spelling change in –zar verbs.

The z changes to c:

No empieces.

Más práctica:

9. Don’t eat lunch in the classroom! No almuerces en

la clase.

10. Don’t play basketball in the library!

¡No juegues al baloncesto en la biblioteca!

11. Don’t practice the piano after eating.

No practiques el piano después de comer.