Commands in Spanish: Ultimate Guide For Formal And Informal Commands With Examples

Are you ready to start bossing people around in Spanish?!

Just kidding!

But on a more serious note, commands in Spanish are super handy to know in everyday chit-chat. Spring Spanish (a project I co-founded) created a fantastic video on how to make commands in Spanish:

Whether you’re asking for directions, telling your pup to sit, or giving instructions to a coworker, knowing how to use commands is key.

This guide’s got you covered with all the deets on Spanish commands, plus plenty of examples to help you get the hang of it.

1. Formal vs. informal commands in Spanish

Spanish uses different commands depending on who you’re talking to.

It’s not rocket science: when you are with your friends, family, or people younger than you, you use informal commands with tú.

Formal commands are for strangers, elders or in professional work settings.

What about forming commands in Spanish? Well, we’re going to break this down later one by one, so to start, we’re just going to say that commands in Spanish follow some grammar rules based on whether a command is:

• affirmative (telling someone to do something) or 
• negative (telling someone not to do something)

But first, here are a few examples for formal vs informal commands in Spanish:

2. Affirmative commands in Spanish

So, just as we mentioned in the previous section, affirmative commands tell someone to do something.

To form affirmative commands with regular verbs, you have to remove the ending (-ar, -er, -ir) and add the necessary ending:

• For -ar verbs, remove the -ar and add -a for tú commands and -ad for vosotros/as commands.
  • Example: Hablar (tú) → Habla; Hablar (vosotros/as) → Hablad
• For -er and -ir verbs, remove the -er/-ir and add -e for tú commands and -ed for vosotros/as commands.
  • Examples: Comer (tú) → Come; Comer (vosotros/as) → Comed

For irregular verbs, we have some bad news: you have to learn how to use them. But we’ll help you with Conversation Based Chunking! You can immediately request your Spanish Chunking Starter Pack to understand this concept a bit better and speed up your Spanish learning concept.

For informal commands, we use the third-person singular form of the present indicative in Spanish. For formal commands, we use the third-person singular of the Spanish present subjunctive. 

Take a look!

3. Spanish negative commands

Spanish negative commands tell someone NOT to do something. 

To form these negative commands in Spanish, you should use the present subjunctive form of the verb + add ‘no’ as a negative command.

• For tú commands, use the yo form of the verb in present subjunctive.
  • Example: No hables (tú) – (Yo) hable
• For vosotros/as commands, use the infinitive form of the verb without the -r + -áis or -éis.
  • Example: No habléis (vosotros/as) – Hablar

More examples based on formality:

4. How to use reflexive verbs as Spanish commands

With reflexive verbs, we attach the reflexive pronoun (me, te, se, nos, os)  to the end of affirmative commands and place it BEFORE the verb in negative commands.

Let’s see how reflexive verbs work in real Spanish sentence when we’re using affirmative commands:

And now the same for negative commands:

5. Commands with direct and indirect object pronouns

When using direct or indirect object pronouns with commands, we attach them to the end of affirmative commands and place them before the verb in negative commands.

A few examples:

6. Polite commands using the present subjunctive

For very polite requests, we can use the present subjunctive instead of the imperative.

This form is often used in formal situations or when you want to sound extra courteous.

7. Learn commands in Spanish with flashcards

Fill in the blanks with the correct command in Spanish!

Practice more with our Full Practice Worksheet Library!

8. Learn how to give commands in Spanish with Conversation Based Chunking

So, we covered the basics about commands in Spanish, and you might already have a “feel” about how to give commands – whether formal or informal. But how do you learn them?

On Effortless Conversations, we use the Conversation Based Chunking method that makes it much easier to learn Spanish. This method focuses on learning common phrases and expressions as whole units. It helps with commands, too!

So, instead of memorizing these expressions from the tables by heart, let’s immerse yourself in Spanish, and focus on these lexical chunks.

You should learn commands in context, so you can pick up the natural rhythm and structure of these Spanish instruction. You can even hear the correct pronunciation and intonation of commands in Spanish, so you truly sound like a native speaker!

¡Buena suerte con tu aprendizaje del español!