The Imperative: Giving Commands

The imperative (der Imperativ) is the form you use to tell someone to do something: Come here!, Be quiet!, Pass the salt! German has a complication English does not: because German distinguishes three ways of addressing people — informal singular du, informal plural ihr, and polite Sie — there are three distinct command forms. The good news is that each one is built from a present-tense form you already know, and in all three the verb jumps to the front of the sentence.

The verb comes first

In a normal German statement the verb sits in second position: Du *machst das Fenster zu* (You close the window). In a command, the verb moves to first position — exactly the slot it occupies in a yes/no question. This fronting is what signals "this is a command" rather than a statement.

English does the same thing — an imperative also puts the verb first and drops the subject (Close the door!) — so this part will feel familiar. What is unfamiliar is that German changes the verb form itself depending on who you are addressing.

The three address forms

Here are the three commands of one verb, machen (to do/make), side by side. Memorise this template and you can build the imperative of almost any regular verb.

The du-form: drop -st and the pronoun

For the informal singular, take the du present-tense form, remove the -st ending, and remove the pronoun du. Du kommst becomes Komm!; du gehst becomes Geh!; du sagst becomes Sag!

You will often see an optional -e added in writing: Komme!, Gehe!, Sage! This older form survives in careful or literary writing and in fixed phrases, but in everyday spoken German the bare stem (Komm!, Geh!, Sag!) is far more natural. With most verbs you can treat the -e as optional and skip it.

The ihr-form: the present tense minus the pronoun

For the informal plural, the imperative is identical to the ihr present-tense form — you simply leave off the pronoun. Ihr macht becomes Macht!, ihr kommt becomes Kommt!, ihr gebt becomes Gebt! There is no ending to remove and no umlaut or vowel change to worry about; whatever the ihr form does, the imperative copies it.

The Sie-form: just invert the question

This is the form learners overthink. The polite imperative is built from the Sie present-tense form (Sie machen, Sie kommen) by putting the verb first and keeping Sie right after it: Machen Sie!, Kommen Sie! The pronoun Sie must stay.

Here is the insight most textbooks bury: the Sie-imperative is identical to a Sie-question, minus the rising intonation. Kommen Sie? with a rising voice is the question "Are you coming?"; Kommen Sie! with a falling, firm voice is the command "Come!" The words are the same — only the melody changes. If you can already ask a polite yes/no question in German, you can already give a polite command. You are not learning a new form; you are reusing one you have.

Why German bothers with three forms

English collapses everything into one imperative — Come! works whether you are talking to your best friend, three children, or a judge. German cannot do this because the imperative is tied to the system of address: the form you choose simultaneously tells the listener how you are relating to them. Using du-commands with a stranger can sound rude; using Sie-commands with your sibling sounds absurdly stiff. The command form is a social signal, not just a grammatical one. Choosing it correctly is part of choosing du or Sie in the first place — see the page on du vs Sie for when each is appropriate.

sein is the one true irregular

One verb you will use constantly does not follow the pattern: sein (to be). Memorise these three; there is no logic to derive them from, you simply learn them.

Beyond sein, the only systematic wrinkles are the strong verbs whose vowel changes affect the du-imperative (Gib!, Nimm!, Lies!), which get their own page on the du-imperative irregularities. For now, the three-form template above carries you a long way.

Softening the command

A bare imperative can sound abrupt, much as "Sit down!" is blunter than "Have a seat." German softens commands with bitte (please) and with little particles like mal and doch, or replaces the command entirely with a polite question. For now, just know that adding bitte is the simplest fix and that politer alternatives exist — the softened-requests page covers the full toolkit.

Common Mistakes

The English-speaker's recurring trap is the subject pronoun. Because English drops it automatically (Come!, never You come! as a command), learners assume German does too — but they often leave du or ihr in out of caution, and they almost always forget that Sie is the one pronoun that must stay. Remember the asymmetry: du and ihr disappear, Sie survives. Get that one rule right and your commands will instantly sound German.

Key Takeaways

• The verb goes to first position in all three command forms — the same slot as in a yes/no question.
• du-imperative: take du machst, drop -st and the pronoun → Mach! (optional written -e: Mache!).
• ihr-imperative: the ihr present form minus the pronoun → Macht!
• Sie-imperative: verb + Sie inverted → Machen Sie! The pronoun stays.
• sein is irregular: Sei! / Seid! / Seien Sie!
• Soften with bitte so you don't sound curt.