Imperative in Portuguese: How to Give Commands & Make Requests

Like other Romance languages, Portuguese has a rich system of verb conjugations, including the Imperative mood.

The Imperative is used to give commands, instructions, suggestions, and directions—whether in everyday conversations, at work, or in public settings.

Importantly, using the Portuguese Imperative correctly depends on several factors: the level of formality, whether you’re speaking to one person or a group, and whether the command is affirmative or negative.

Here’s an example with the verb falar (to speak):

Informal (singular)	Fala mais baixo. Lower your voice
Informal (singular, negation)	Não fales mais baixo. Don’t lower your voice
Formal (singular)	Fale mais baixo. Lower your voice
Plural (any tone)	Falem mais baixo. Lower your voice

The challenge here lies in knowing when to use each form while also remembering the correct conjugation. Fortunately, there are some useful tricks to help you with that. Read on.

Two Paths to Recall the Imperative Forms

1. Tweaking the Present Tense

This strategy is simple, straightforward, and popular among beginners.

You start with the first-person singular (eu) of the Present Simple of the verb in question. From there, you tweak its ending to find the Imperative form you need. All it takes is learning a few pattern adjustments, as shown below.

But there’s a caveat! It only works for regular verbs.

Granted, most verbs are regular; therefore, this strategy remains widely applicable and useful. However, as you may know, some of the most frequently used verbs are irregular.

That said, let’s learn these tweaks.

🔎 Learn more about regular conjugation:

Portuguese Regular Verbs in the Present Tense
Portuguese Regular Verbs in the Past Tense

Singular and informal (tu)

In informal contexts, the Imperative form changes depending on whether the sentence is affirmative or negative.

To determine both affirmative and negative forms for each verb conjugation group, we adjust the endings of the first-person singular (eu) form in the Present tense, following these patterns:

	FIRST-PERSON Present tense	IMPERATIVE 1 affirmation	IMPERATIVE 2 negation
-ar \| andar	ando	anda!	não andes!
-er \| beber	bebo	bebe!	não bebas!
-ir \| partir	parto	parte!	não partas!

Singular and formal (você)

In formal contexts, there is only one Imperative form (regardless of whether the sentence is affirmative or negative).

To find this form for each conjugation group, we adjust the endings of the first-person singular (eu) form in the Present tense according to the following patterns:

	FIRST-PERSON Present tense	IMPERATIVE 3
-ar \| andar	ando	(não) ande!
-er \| beber	bebo	(não) bebe!
-ir \| partir	parto	(não) parta!

Plural (vocês)

When addressing a group of people, we adjust the endings of the first-person singular (eu) form in the Present tense according to the following patterns:

	FIRST-PERSON Present tense	IMPERATIVE 4
-ar \| andar	ando	(não) andem!
-er \| beber	bebo	(não) bebam!
-ir \| partir	parto	(não) partam!

Again, all these spelling tweaks won’t work with irregular verbs. To handle those, you’ll need to adopt the second strategy outlined below (or memorize the forms over time).

Irregular verbs

Here are the Imperative forms of six widely used irregular verbs:

	IMP 1	IMP 2	IMP 3	IMP 4
*ser*	sê!	não sejas!	(não) seja!	(não) sejam!
*estar*	está!	não estejas!	(não) esteja!	(não) estejam!
*dar*	dá!	não dês!	(não) dê!	(não) deem!
ir	vai!	não vás!	(não) vá	(não) vão
*fazer*	faz!	não faças!	(não) faça!	(não) façam
*ver*	vê!	não vejas!	(não) veja!	(não) vejam!

🔎 Portuguese Must-Know Irregular Verbs

2. Going from the Subjunctive

This second path to finding the Imperative forms is universal but implies that you are acquainted with the Present Subjunctive (besides the Present tense Indicative).

See, the Present tense Subjunctive grants you access to the Imperative forms of all verbs, whether or not they are regular.

🔎 Present Subjunctive in Portuguese: How and When to Use It

So, here’s how it all works:

IMPERATIVE 1	IMPERATIVE 2	IMPERATIVE 3	IMPERATIVE 4
3-person sing. IND. MOOD	2-person sing. SUB. MOOD	1-person sing. SUB. MOOD	2-person plu. SUB. MOOD

Now, let’s see if the scheme shown above holds. We start with the regular verb Beber :

		BEBER Present tense
	> Indicative	> Subjunctive
eu	bebo	beba
tu	bebes	bebas
ele, ela	bebe	beba
nós	bebemos	bebamos
vocês eles, elas	bebem	bebam

As we can see, the suggested Imperative forms of Strategy 2 match those indicated by Strategy 1.

Let’s now try with an irregular verb:

		IR Present tense
	> Indicative	> Subjunctive
eu	vou	vá
tu	vais	vás
ele, ela	vai	vá
nós	vamos	vamos
vocês eles, elas	vão	vão

Again, if you look up the table of the irregular verbs above, you’ll see that the Imperative forms are the same.

There’s only one exception! And that’s Imperative 1 of the verb ser: sê. In this case, the third-person indicative mood won’t match it. But that’s about it when it comes to exceptions.

This is it. I hope these two strategies will help you to cope with this Imperative challenge 🙂

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Imperative in Portuguese: How to Give Commands & Make Requests