Portuguese Imperative: Giving Commands Without Sounding Rude

The Portuguese imperative is the verb form for telling someone to do something, and Brazilian Portuguese has two of them in daily use. The standard one, the one in grammar books, on signs and in polite requests, is borrowed from the present subjunctive: fale, venha, faça. The one you will hear most in the street looks like the present tense: fala, vem, faz. You need to understand both and produce the first until the second comes naturally.

That is why this topic comes after the subjunctive. If you have read the Portuguese subjunctive, you already know the standard imperative. You just have not been told yet.

The standard imperative: the subjunctive, re-used

For você and vocês, the command form is simply the present subjunctive. Take the eu form of the present, drop the -o, and swap the vowel: -ar verbs take -e, -er and -ir verbs take -a.

And the handful whose subjunctive has to be learned separately:

Some sentences in the standard form:

• Fale mais devagar, por favor. - Speak more slowly, please.
• Espere aqui. - Wait here.
• Venha comigo. - Come with me.
• Faça isso agora. - Do that now.
• Tenha calma. - Stay calm.

This is the form on shop signs, in instructions, in adverts, and in anything a Brazilian writes down. It is also the form to use with anyone you would address formally.

Spelling changes that protect the sound

Swapping -a for -e can wreck the pronunciation of a verb whose stem ends in c, g or ç, so the spelling adjusts to keep the sound the same. These look irregular on the page and are perfectly regular in the ear:

• ficar becomes fique, not fice: the qu keeps the hard k sound. Fique aqui. - Stay here.
• ligar becomes ligue: the u keeps the g hard. Me ligue amanhã. - Call me tomorrow.
• chegar becomes chegue: Chegue cedo. - Arrive early.
• começar becomes comece: the cedilla is no longer needed before an e. Comece agora. - Start now.
• tocar becomes toque: Toque a música. - Play the music.

The same changes appear everywhere the subjunctive does, so learning them here pays off twice.

The everyday imperative: what Brazilians actually shout

Now spend a day in Brazil and count. Most of the commands you hear will not be fale and venha. They will be these:

• Olha! - Look!
• Vem cá. - Come here.
• Espera aí. - Hang on.
• Fala sério! - Come off it! (Literally speak seriously.)
• Me liga amanhã. - Call me tomorrow.
• Faz isso pra mim. - Do that for me.

These are the old imperative of tu, which for regular verbs looks exactly like the ele form of the present tense: fala, come, olha, espera. Grammatically it belongs to tu, but across much of Brazil, and above all in the south-east, it is used with você in any relaxed conversation, including by people who would never use tu itself. Parts of the north-east lean more on the subjunctive forms even in casual speech (olhe, venha), so the balance varies by region. Grammarians frown at the mix; everyone else carries on.

The few that look odd are worth knowing: vem (from vir), faz (from fazer), diz (from dizer), and vai (from ir).

So which should you use? Produce the standard form while you are learning and recognise the everyday one. Fale is never wrong, and it signals care. Fala in the wrong setting, to a customs officer, say, sounds a bit like addressing them as mate. Once you can hear which one the people around you are using, match them.

The commands you will hear every day

Side by side, the two registers for the commands that come up most. The left column is what you write and what you say to a stranger; the right is what you hear between friends, in families and on television.

That last one is worth stealing. Se cuida is one of the most common ways to say goodbye to a friend in Brazil, and it is a reflexive imperative in the everyday register, with the pronoun in front where Brazilians like it. A textbook would write cuide-se, and you will see it in messages; out loud, se cuida wins.

Some of these are also fixed expressions in their own right. Deixa pra lá means forget it, never mind; fica quieto is keep still or be quiet; and entre, said at an open door, is the ordinary welcome, the Portuguese come in.

Negative commands: não plus the subjunctive

Negatives are simpler. Put não in front of the subjunctive form:

• Não fale isso. - Do not say that.
• Não faça isso. - Do not do that.
• Não vá embora. - Do not go.
• Não se preocupe. - Do not worry.

In casual speech, the everyday form creeps in here too: não fala isso is common in Brazil. But não plus the subjunctive is correct in every register, so it is the one to learn first. (In Portugal, where tu is alive, the rule is strict: the affirmative is fala and the negative is não fales, never não fala.)

Let's: vamos plus an infinitive

The nós imperative technically exists (falemos, comamos), but in conversation it sounds like the opening of a sermon. Brazilians say vamos plus the infinitive:

• Vamos comer! - Let's eat!
• Vamos ver. - Let's see.
• Vamos embora. - Let's go.

This is the same vamos that builds the everyday future, and context sorts out which one you mean. Vamos comer can be we are going to eat or let's eat; the tone of voice does the rest.

Where the pronoun goes

The textbook rule attaches the pronoun after an affirmative command with a hyphen: diga-me, tell me. That is correct, it is what you will see in formal writing, and in Brazilian speech it sounds as if you are reading from a document. Brazilians put the pronoun first:

• Me diga. - Tell me.
• Me ajuda aqui. - Give me a hand here.
• Me dá um café, por favor. - A coffee, please.

That last one deserves a note, because it is how people order in a Brazilian café. English speakers flinch at give me a coffee, but me dá um café, por favor (or the even more Brazilian me vê um café, literally see me a coffee) is perfectly polite. The por favor and the tone carry the courtesy.

Small words that soften a command

Brazilian Portuguese rarely delivers a bare command. It pads it with small words that do the work please and just do in English, and learning them is the quickest way to stop sounding like a drill sergeant:

• por favor - please, as anywhere: Espere aqui, por favor.
• só - just: Espera só um minuto. - Just wait a minute.
• aí - there, but mostly just softening: Espera aí and senta aí are gentler than espera and senta on their own.
• vai - go on, as encouragement: Vai, fala! - Go on, say it!

None of these change the grammar. They change how the sentence lands, which in a language as tone-sensitive as Brazilian Portuguese matters as much as getting the ending right.

How to ask without ordering

For a genuine favour from a stranger, Portuguese does what English does and turns the command into a question with poder:

• Você pode me ajudar? - Can you help me?
• Você poderia falar mais devagar? - Could you speak more slowly?

Poderia is a notch softer than pode. Neither is a command at all, which is the point.

Mistakes English speakers make

1. Using the infinitive as a command. Signs do it (não fumar, no smoking), and so learners assume they can say falar mais devagar to a person. You cannot. On a sign, fine; to a human, use fale.

2. Using the everyday form in writing. Fala, vem and me liga belong to speech and to messages between friends. In an email, on a form, or to anyone you would call o senhor, write fale, venha and me ligue. Brazilians switch registers freely when talking; on the page, the standard form is expected.

3. Hyphenating pronouns in speech. Diga-me is correct and sounds like a letter from a solicitor. In Brazil, say me diga or, relaxed, me diz.

4. Overcorrecting into rudeness. English speakers sometimes avoid imperatives entirely because give me sounds blunt. In Portuguese the imperative plus por favor is ordinary courtesy. Save the pode...? questions for favours, not for coffee.

What to do next

If the subjunctive is secure, the standard imperative is already yours: drill the five that break the eu-form rule (seja, esteja, vá, saiba, dê) and the eu-form ones that look irregular (faça, venha, diga) until they come out without thinking. Then listen for the everyday forms, olha, vem, espera, fala, in anything Brazilian you watch, and notice who uses which with whom. That, more than any table, is what teaches the register.

Every verb on this page is in the Portuguese course, which is where to drill them.