Imperativ — giving commands

Commands, instructions, invitations, pleas. Come here! Hold on. Try this. Open the door. In German you form them by playing with the verb — drop the subject, front the verb, and shape it for whoever you're talking to.

Three forms, three audiences

German commands depend on who you're addressing, which is the same split you already know: du (one friend), ihr (a group of friends), Sie (one or more people formally).

Notice two things. The du form is just the stem — no ending, no subject pronoun. The ihr form looks exactly like the present-tense ihr-form, minus the ihr. The Sie form keeps the Sie (because you're being polite — you need the pronoun to land the tone).

Worked example

Komm her! — Come here!

Infinitive: kommen. Strip -en. Strip the implied du. What's left? Komm. That's your command.

Now scale it:

• Kommt her! — multiple friends. Present-tense ihr-form is kommt, drop the subject.
• Kommen Sie her! — a stranger or boss. Infinitive + Sie, identical in shape to a yes/no question but it's not a question.

The -e on du-forms (optional, fading)

Some du-form imperatives historically added an -e: Komme!, Gehe!. Modern spoken German almost always drops it. Keep it in a few poetic or fossilized phrases (Glaube mir!), but otherwise: stem only.

Exception: if the stem ends in -t or -d (or sometimes a cluster), keeping the -e helps pronunciation. Arbeite!, Finde!, Öffne! all keep their -e. Same phonetic instinct as arbeitest from the present-tense lesson.

Stem-changing verbs — the one rule worth burning in

Stem-changing verbs in Präsens (e → i, e → ie) keep the changed stem in the du imperative. But the a → ä verbs drop the umlaut back.

Rule: if the vowel change involves an umlaut (ä, äu), drop the umlaut in the du-command. Fahr! not Fähr!. The e → i and e → ie shifts stay (see Lies!, Sieh!, Gib!, Nimm! in the matrix above).

Sein and werden — the misfits

Sein is irregular here too. Memorize:

• Sei! (du) / Seid! (ihr) / Seien Sie! (formal)
• Sei ruhig! — Be quiet!
• Seid vorsichtig! — Be careful! (to a group)
• Seien Sie so freundlich! — Be so kind! (formal)

Werden rarely shows up as an imperative, but when it does: Werde gesund! (Get well!), Werden Sie Mitglied! (Become a member!).

Softening commands (because nobody likes being barked at)

Bare imperatives can feel abrupt. Germans soften with bitte and with modal particles (mal, doch, denn). These don't change the grammar — they change the tone.

You don't need these to be grammatically correct — but you'll sound rude without them in casual speech.

Separable verbs in imperatives

Separable verbs split in commands, just like they do in main clauses. Prefix goes to the end.

Common mistakes, named

1. Keeping the du. Du komm! ❌ → Komm! ✓ The du-imperativ has no pronoun.

2. Forgetting the stem change. Sprech langsamer! ❌ → Sprich langsamer! ✓ e → i verbs carry the change into the imperative.

3. Leaving the umlaut on a → ä verbs. Fähr vorsichtig! ❌ → Fahr vorsichtig! ✓ a → ä verbs drop the umlaut in the du-imperative.

4. Dropping Sie in the formal form. Kommen bitte! ❌ → Kommen Sie bitte! ✓ Without the Sie, it's no longer addressing anyone — it's just an infinitive.

Mini check

Where this leads

Commands are only useful if you can also say "don't." That means negation: nicht versus kein. Small rule, massive frequency.

Next up: Verneinung — saying no with nicht and kein.

Test yourself