When you want to have something done, you need a quick and easy way to express yourself. The English equivalent would be a verbal “command” or forceful request. In Portuguese, we use the imperative mode. Here are some examples of imperative constructions:

Notice that you usually give commands to either one person (you) or a group of people (you (pl.)). Normally we don't tell ourselves what to do, or even just ourselves and a group of people (i.e., we could say “let us [verb]” or “let me [see],” but that's not strictly a command or imperative construction). So the imperative is relatively easy to learn because you only have to know two basic forms, singular and plural.

The table that follows shows how to write the imperative in Portuguese.

TRACK 85

Imperative of — AR Verbs

In writing this verb, start with the first person singular, present indicative form of the verb. If the verb is estudar (to study) then the first person form is estudo (I study). Next, drop the last vowel and add the endings — e for singular forms and — em for plural forms. You are done! Now remember the rules in Portuguese about the phonetic adjustments. That means that depending on the end vowels, you might have to add other letters to make the verbs sound alike, across conjugations. This is what happens to the verb começar (to start). This verb ends in — a and is preceded by the consonant — ç —. This makes the sound soft, like a /s/, as in “sat” or “sought.” When the — o is dropped, and the — e is added, there is no need to include the soft — ç — sound, because the next vowel is — e, and it's already soft, so just include — c —. A somewhat similar situation occurs with the verb chegar (to arrive). In this case, it is necessary to include change to the combination — gu —; otherwise a — ge — would sound like gente (people), with a soft consonantal sound.

Next, look at the imperative forms of verbs that end in — er and — ir.

TRACK 86

Imperative of — er and — ir Verbs

So, in this case, we drop the — o and adding either — a or — am according to the number of listeners. Although they might look irregular, because they are based on the irregular first person form, these imperative verbs are actually very regular. Now, here's a list of the truly irregular imperative/command forms:

TRACK 87

Irregular Imperatives

As you can see, there is no need to indicate the first person singular form of the present tense, since it does not matter for the purposes of creating the imperative verbs. They are all irregular from the start. These verbs are very handy when you want to communicate something immediate without a lot of subtlety.

If you would like to be a little more polite, you have to use what we call a present subjunctive. Read on.