| Forming the Imperative |
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Part 1: Using Italian Verbs to Give Commands, Advice, and Exhortations
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"Can someone explain the use of il passato prossimo and i verbi riflessivi?"
HEGE5
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The imperative (l'imperativo) is used to give orders, advice, and exhortation: be good, stay home, let's go.
The formation of the imperative in Italian follows a sort of "back-to-front" rule for the tu and Lei forms. In other words, parlare generates (tu) parla and (Lei) parli - as if the indicative forms had swapped places - while -ere and -ire verbs behave in exactly the opposite way: (tu) prendi, (Lei) prenda.
To create perfect, oven-fresh imperatives, stick to the following rules:
- the tu and voi forms are identical to their corresponding present indicative forms, except for the tu form of -are verbs, which add -a to the root: domandare > domanda
- the formal Lei and Loro forms (though the second is hardly every used) take the corresponding forms of the present subjunctive (see table below)
- the noi form (translated by "let's..." in English) also mimics the present subjunctive form - but this is identical to the common or garden-variety present indicative (andiamo, vediamo, etc.)
Regular verbs therefore have the following imperative forms:
| cantare | vendere | aprire | finire |
| (tu) | canta | vendi | apri | finisci |
| (Lei) | canti | venda | apra | finisca |
| (noi) | cantiamo | vendiamo | apriamo | finiamo |
| (voi) | cantate | vendete | aprite | finite |
| (Loro) | cantino | vendano | aprano | finiscano |
Irregular verbs follow the same pattern, except for essere and avere, which have rule-bending tu and voi forms:
| essere | avere |
| (tu) | sii | abbi |
| (Lei) | sia | abbia |
| (noi) | siamo | abbiamo |
| (voi) | siate | abbiate |
| (Loro) | siano | abbiano |
Note too that dire has an irregular, truncated tu form: di'. The same goes for andare, dare, fare, and stare, but with these four, a regular tu form is also possible: va'/vai, da'/dai, fa'/fai, sta'/stai.
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