Spanish Informal Commands: Telling Friends What to Do (Tú Commands)

While grammatically permissible, it is generally uncommon and alters the nuance. Explicitly including tú often adds strong emphasis, potentially sounding impatient, exasperated, or even mildly scolding, akin to "You speak!" rather than a simple "Speak!". In most everyday contexts, the verb form alone clearly conveys the tú command, making the explicit subject tú redundant and typically omitted for natural conversational flow. For instance, ¡Hazlo tú! (You do it!) places particular emphasis on who should perform the action.

Yes, reflexive verbs adhere to the same foundational pattern. You first form the regular (or irregular) affirmative tú command, and then you attach the reflexive pronoun te directly to the end of the verb. It is crucial to remember the rule for adding a written accent mark (tilde) if necessary, to maintain the verb's original stress. For example, sentarse (to sit down) becomes ¡Siéntate! (Sit down!), and lavarse (to wash oneself) becomes ¡Lávate! (Wash yourself!).

The choice between tú and usted (and consequently, their respective command forms) hinges on the level of formality, social distance, and respect you wish to convey. Generally, use tú with friends, family members, children, pets, and people of similar age or status when a comfortable rapport exists. Use usted for strangers, elders, figures of authority (e.g., your boss, a police officer, a highly respected professor outside of informal interactions), or in formal business or public settings. When in doubt, especially with someone you are just meeting or whose social standing is unclear, it is always safer and more respectful to begin with the usted form. The other person may then indicate that tú is acceptable if they prefer a more informal interaction, a common social negotiation in Spanish-speaking cultures.

For affirmative tú commands, the "Irregular Eight" (Ven Di Sal Haz Ten Ve Pon Sé) constitute the primary group of verbs with completely unique, short forms that do not derive from the present indicative's third-person singular. While stem-changing verbs could be considered a form of irregularity, they consistently follow the pattern of their present indicative él/ella/usted forms (e.g., pensar → piensa). All other verbs generally adhere to the regular pattern of simply taking the third-person singular present indicative form. Therefore, these eight truly irregular commands are the main exceptions to memorize.

In certain regions of Latin America, particularly in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and parts of Central America, the pronoun vos is used informally instead of tú. The affirmative vos command forms are distinct: they are generally formed by dropping the final r from the infinitive and adding an accent mark to the last vowel of the remaining stem. For example, hablar becomes ¡Hablá!, comer becomes ¡Comé!, and escribir becomes ¡Escribí!. While voseo is an important regional feature of Spanish, the tú command remains the most widely recognized and taught informal singular command form across the majority of the Spanish-speaking world, and thus is the primary focus of this explanation.