Español 30

Lección Estructuras Práctica

Los mandatos formales (usted) irregulares

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By now you are able to tell people what to do with formal and informal commands. Now, you are going to use irregular verbs in the command form. Yes, irregulars can be difficult, but really there are only 5 of them; the rest follow a pattern.

You have already encountered poner and decir as commands. They are both irregular yo ~go verbs in present tense, so it's no surprise how they look and sound here. Most irregular yo verbs (eg: conocer-yo conozco) follow the same pattern:

Verb	Informal	Formal	Plural
decir	di/no digas	diga	digan
poner	pon/no pongas	ponga	pongan
hacer	haz/no hagas	haga	hagan
salir	sal/no salgas	salga	salgan
venir	ven/no vengas	venga	vengan
oír - to hear	oye/no oigas	oiga	oigan
caer - to fall	cae/no caigas	caiga	caigan

This may seem like a lot of memory work just to give some orders - but these forms are the basis for the Subjunctive Mode, a really common and necessary verb form. Vale la pena to practice with these now, so they are easier in Module 6, 7 and 9.

Four more verbs

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There are four more verbs to show you. Unfortunately, the 3 Cs rule does not work with these. You wil just have to memorize these. But is it not better to memorize just four rather than all of the rest?

Verb	Present yo form	Command
estar	estoy	esté
dar	doy	dé
ir	voy	vaya
saber	sé	sepa

Sal Pon and Ve Ven

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Once upon a time, there was a man working his first day on the job as a census taker. His name was Sal Pon. He went to various houses and asked how many people lived there. When he got to the first house of a family, the house of Ve Ven, he asked "How many children do you have?"

Ve Ven answered "I have 10 children"

"TEN?? CHILDREN???" Sal Pon exclaimed.

Then Sal Pon went back to the office and told his supervisor that he had met this man with so many children. The supervisor wasn't paying much attention and later when Sal Pon had left he thought about it and said.

"Di Sal Pon Se Ve Ven Haz Ten?" (Did Sal Pon say Ve Ven has ten?)

Acronyms from the story

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If you can remember that phrase "Di Sal Pon Se Ve Ven Haz Ten?", you will know all of the irregular affirmative tú commands. Take a look at this chart to see what we mean.

Acronym	Came from verb	Irregular Affirmative tú command
di (Did)	decir	di
sal (Sal)	salir	sal
pon (Pon)	poner	pon
se (Say)	ser	sé
ve (Ve)	ir	ve
ven (Ven)	venir	ven
haz (Has)	hacer	haz
ten (Ten)	tener	ten

¿Comprendiste? I bet you've got them now! Answer the question using the words below and click on the Respuesta link to see if you answered correctly! ¿Cuál es el mandato afirmativo del verbo? Son mandatos informales (tú): decir Respuesta decir di ser Respuesta ser sé hacer Respuesta hacer haz salir Respuesta salir sal tener Respuesta tener ten venir Respuesta venir ven poner Respuesta poner pon ir Respuesta ir ve

You made it! We are done! You have learned all of the forms of the tú and usted commands. We knew you could do it.