{"id":1516,"date":"2010-11-10T20:53:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T19:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2014-06-18T12:22:56","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T11:22:56","slug":"commands-in-german-imperative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/1516\/commands-in-german-imperative","title":{"rendered":"Commands in German – Imperative"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What is a Command in German – Imperative?<\/h3>\n

An Imperative is used when giving commands, orders or instructions like “Shut up!”<\/strong> or “Help me!”<\/strong> In these cases the verb will be formed in a special way.<\/p>\n

The three different forms of the German imperative:<\/h3>\n

There are three ways of giving commands in German by using the German imperative. When to use which form depends on who you are talking to. It could be either:<\/p>\n

– the informal “du”<\/strong> form if you are talking to a person which you know well
\n– the informal “ihr”<\/strong> form if you are talking to more than one person which you know well
\n– the formal “Sie”<\/strong> form if you are talking to one or more than one person which you don’t know very well<\/p>\n

If you’re not sure, when to use du, ihr or Sie read our blog When to use Sie, du and ihr<\/a><\/p>\n

Forming the German imperative:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nForm of Imperative<\/strong><\/td>\nVerb Example<\/strong><\/td>\nTranslation<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
du (singular)<\/strong><\/td>\nverb stem (+e)<\/td>\nmach(e)!<\/td>\nmake!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ihr (plural)<\/strong><\/td>\nverb stem + t<\/td>\nmacht!<\/td>\nmake!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sie (polite singular and plural)<\/strong><\/td>\nverb stem + en<\/td>\nmachen Sie!<\/td>\nmake!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As you can see from the table above, the pronouns du<\/strong> and ihr<\/strong> are dropped, leaving only the verb itself when using the imperative in German. The only time when the pronoun still appears is when using the Sie <\/strong>form.<\/p>\n

Some more examples:<\/strong><\/p>\n

fang(e)! – catch
\nfangt! – catch
\nfangen Sie! – catch<\/p>\n

komm(e)! – come
\nkommt – come
\nkommen Sie! – come<\/p>\n

With the du form, the last -e<\/strong> of the verb is usually dropped. There are of course exceptions, but these are very rare. For example, when the stem of the verb ends in chn-<\/strong> or fn-<\/strong> or tm-<\/strong> the -e<\/strong> is kept to make the pronunciation easier.<\/p>\n

Remember that sometimes the du<\/strong> form of a verb can have a vowel change. In these cases, the imperative in German will also have a vowel change.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/strong>
\nlesen (to read): du liest – lies!
\nessen (to eat): du isst – iss!<\/p>\n

BUT<\/strong> if there is a vowel change which involves an umlaut, this umlaut is not added to the du<\/strong> form in the imperative.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/strong>
\nschlafen (to sleep): du schl\u00e4fst – schlaf!
\nfahren (to drive): du f\u00e4hrst – fahr!<\/p>\n

The German imperative is important to get to grips with. Being able to give commands in German is a key step in learning the German language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a Command in German – Imperative? An Imperative is used when giving commands, orders or instructions like “Shut up!” or “Help me!” In these cases the verb will be formed in a special way. The three different forms of the German imperative: There are three ways of giving commands in German by using […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15666,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions\/15666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jabbalab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}