Using The Spanish Imperative Tense For Giving Advice

Today we are going to take a look at the Imperative Tense and how it is used to give advice. The Imperative Tense is often used to give advice, making it very common to see in advertisements. Open up any Spanish newspaper or magazine and you will be amazed to find it filled with the Imperative Tense.

"Busque nuestro cup?n en el interior del diario". (Look for our coupon inside this newspaper)
"No pienses m?s, compra tu Netbook en Compuword". (Don't think anymore, buy your Netbook at Compuword)
"Este a?o, vive M?xico" (This year, experience Mexico)
"Ahorre comprando en....." (Save Money buying at.....)

The Advertisements use the forms "Usted" or "T?" according to their target: young people or older people.

The Imperative tense is also very common in daily life to give advice to customers or friends. Let's see how we conjugate the Imperative in second person. But, be careful, when used informatively, the Imperative has different conjugations in the affirmative and negative forms.

Afirmative T?:

Verbs that end in AR: T? ComprA
Verbs that end in ER/IR: T? ComE, VivE
Verbs in the Present tense that have "go"in the first person for example "Tener" "yo tengo", are Irregular Verbs in T?.
Hacer: Haz. Tener: Ten. Decir: Di. Poner: Pon. Traer: Trae. Venir: Ven.

Negative T?:

If the verb ends in AR, it is like the "Yo" form in Present tense, but the "O" changes to "ES".
For example: Yo compro. Negative Imperative: No compres.

If the verb ends in ER or IR, it is like the "Yo" form in Present tense, but the "O" changes to "AS".

For example: Yo tengo. Negative Imperative: No tengas. Yo digo. Negative Imperative: No digas.

Afirmative and Negative Usted:
It is like T? in the Negative form but without "S".
For example: Usted tenga/ Usted no tenga.

There are some verbs that are totally Irregular:
IR: T? ve, T? No vayas. Usted vaya, Usted no vaya.
Ser: T? s?, T? no seas. Usted sea, Usted no sea.
Saber: T? sabe, T? no sepas. Usted sepa, Usted no sepa.
Estar: T? est?, T? no est?s. Usted est?, Usted no est?.

Hopefully this quick lesson will help you learn more about the Imperative Tense. The best way to learn the Imperative it to memorize these little formulas. Once you know the formula, you can use it for almost any verb! Make sure to also memorize the irregulars, as there is no easy formula for these.

If you use Learning Like Crazy's verb conjugation software called the Verbarrator, the imperative tense is one of the 20 or 21 tenses covered by the Verbarrator. Most of my students find the Verbarartor software more interactive than using the verb conjugation charts found online to learn the imperative tense and other Spanish verb tenses.