FORMAL COMMANDS

• To give orders• To give advise

FORMAL COMMANDSUsted (you formal) Ustedes (you all in Latin America; you all formal in Spain).

The usted and ustedes commands, (like the negative tú commands), are formed by dropping the final -o of the yo form of the present tense. For -ar verbs, add -e or -en.

Hablar

Hablo

Hable Habl eHablen Habl e

n

For -er and -ir verbs, add -a or -an.

Escribir

Escribo

Escriba

Escrib a

Escriban

Escrib an

Verbs with IRREGULAR PRESENT TENSE “YO” FORMS will have irregular command forms.

-STEM CHANGES will occur as they do in the 1st person present form of the verb

-VERBS ENDING IN –CAR, -GAR & -ZAR will have special spelling changes.

-There are some additional IRREGULAR VERBS in formal commands.

Atención

Just as you learned in familiar commands, pronouns (direct and indirect object as well as reflexive) will proceed negative commands and attach to the end of affirmative commands.

*Remember to add an accent mark to an affirmative command if you attach a pronoun in order to preserve the original stress (on the second to last syllable of the command without the pronoun)