Los mandatos informales Informal Commands Ven 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►come Duermes►duerme You may notice this is the same as the 3rd person singular form (él/ella/usted)

Práctica ¡Duerme ahora! 1. Sleep now!

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 and “a” for –er & –ir verbs.

Por ejemplo Comer►como► Com► Coma► ¡ No comas! Asistir ►asisto► Asist► Asista► ¡No asistas! Hablar►hablo► Habl► Hable► ¡No hables!

A couple of notes: Relajarse► Relaja► ¡Relájate! 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!

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!

7. Don’t avoid vegetables! 7. No evites los vegetales!

8. Breathe deeply! 8. Respira profundamente!

Mandatos con –car, -gar, zar When a verb ends with –car, -gar, or –zar, there is a spelling change in the negative tú command. The spelling change is to preserve the sound of the command.

To avoid saying, “no practices”, you need to change the c to que: -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”, 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: No almuerces en la clase. 9. Don’t eat lunch in the classroom!

10. Don’t play basketball in the library! ¡No juegues al baloncesto en la biblioteca!

No practiques el piano después de comer. 11. Don’t practice the piano after eating.