Spanish Negative Commands

Commands - the imperative - are where Spanish quietly hands you a bonus. You spent chapters building the present subjunctive for wishes, emotion and doubt. It turns out those same forms are exactly what you need to tell someone not to do something. Every negative command is the present subjunctive with a no in front. No new shapes, no new endings.

This page assumes you can already build the subjunctive. If hables, comas, vengas and hagas look unfamiliar, start with how to form the present subjunctive and come back.

The one rule: negative command = no + subjunctive

To tell anyone not to do something, take the present subjunctive form for that person and put no in front.

• no hables (don't speak - tú)
• no comas (don't eat - tú)
• no escribas (don't write - tú)
• no hable (don't speak - usted)
• no habléis (don't speak - vosotros)
• no hablemos (let's not speak - nosotros)

That is the whole rule. Because the subjunctive inherits any yo-form irregularity, so do negative commands: no vengas (from vengo), no hagas (from hago), no salgas (from salgo), no digas (from digo). The six true irregulars carry through too: no seas, no vayas, no des, no sepas, no estés, no haya.

Affirmative versus negative: the full grid

Here is where it pays to see the two halves side by side, because they only partly agree. The affirmative tú and affirmative vosotros forms march to their own drum; everything else uses the subjunctive in both directions.

Read the table column by column and the pattern jumps out. The usted, nosotros and ustedes rows are identical left and right: they are the subjunctive whether you are commanding or forbidding. Only tú and vosotros have a distinct affirmative form that the negative does not share.

For tú, the affirmative is usually the third-person singular present indicative - habla, come, escribe - plus eight irregular one-syllable forms worth memorising: di (decir), haz (hacer), ve (ir), pon (poner), sal (salir), sé (ser), ten (tener), ven (venir). Every one of those flips to a clean subjunctive in the negative: di but no digas, haz but no hagas, ven but no vengas, pon but no pongas.

For vosotros, the affirmative is formed by swapping the -r of the infinitive for -d (hablar -> hablad, comer -> comed), but the negative is the subjunctive no habléis, no comáis.

The pronoun switch

The second thing to nail is where object and reflexive pronouns go, because the imperative flips them depending on affirmative versus negative.

• Affirmative: pronouns attach to the end of the verb. dímelo (tell me it), levántate (get up), démelo (give it to me).
• Negative: pronouns go before the verb, between the no and the verb. no me lo digas (don't tell me it), no te levantes (don't get up), no me lo dé (don't give it to me).

So the single act of adding a no drags the pronoun from the back of the verb to the front:

• Dímelo. -> No me lo digas. (Tell me it. -> Don't tell me it.)
• Levántate. -> No te levantes. (Get up. -> Don't get up.)
• Hágalo. -> No lo haga. (Do it. -> Don't do it.)
• Sentaos. -> No os sentéis. (Sit down. -> Don't sit down.)

Notice also that the affirmative versions often need a written accent (dímelo, levántate) because attaching the pronoun lengthens the word and shifts where the stress lands. In the negative, with the pronoun standing free before the verb, that accent problem disappears.

Worked examples

• Habla más despacio. / No hables tan rápido. (Speak more slowly. / Don't speak so fast.)
• Come la verdura. / No comas tanto dulce. (Eat your vegetables. / Don't eat so many sweets.)
• Ven aquí. / No vengas tarde. (Come here. / Don't come late.)
• Dímelo ahora. / No me lo digas todavía. (Tell me now. / Don't tell me yet.)
• Siéntese, por favor. / No se siente ahí. (Sit down, please. / Don't sit there.) - usted.
• Salid pronto. / No salgáis sin abrigo. (Leave soon. / Don't go out without a coat.) - vosotros.
• Hagámoslo. / No lo hagamos. (Let's do it. / Let's not do it.) - nosotros.

Common mistakes English speakers make

Using the affirmative form with a no. Learners reach for no habla or no come, copying the affirmative tú command and just bolting on a no. But the negative tú command is the subjunctive: no hables, no comas. The affirmative shape does not survive the negation.

Leaving the pronoun on the end of a negative command. Producing no digamelo or no levántate copies the affirmative attachment habit. In the negative the pronoun moves in front: no me lo digas, no te levantes. Add the no and the pronoun jumps to before the verb.

Mixing up the usted and tú endings. Because usted uses the subjunctive in both directions, learners sometimes carry the -e/-a usted ending into the tú command and say no hable when speaking informally to a friend. To a friend it is no hables; the -s marks the tú. Match the ending to the person you are addressing.

Get the one rule, the affirmative-tú exception and the pronoun switch straight, and commands stop being a separate topic. They are just the subjunctive you already know, pointed at someone, with no in front.

See also

• How to form the present subjunctive - the endings, the yo-stem rule and the six irregulars that every negative command is built from.
• The subjunctive after doubt and denial - another use of the same forms, with the negation flip.
• The Spanish grammar cheatsheet has the affirmative-versus-negative command grid and the pronoun-placement rule on one card.