Imperative Sentences

An imperative sentence gives an order, a request, or an instruction: Wait. Don't touch that. Turn left at the corner. Brazilian Portuguese imperatives are simple in shape — usually one verb, often with the subject left out — but they hide one genuinely confusing point: spoken Brazil mixes two different "you" systems (você and tu), and the command forms borrowed from each look different. This page sorts that out and shows how Brazilians actually soften commands so they don't sound bossy.

Affirmative commands: the você form

The standard, textbook imperative is built on the present subjunctive of the verb (the você form). For most verbs this means an -ar verb ends in -e and an -er/-ir verb ends in -a — the "opposite vowel" of the present indicative.

The English imperative is just the bare verb (Wait! Open!), so the trap is using the bare Portuguese infinitive or the present-indicative form. ❌ Esperar! and ❌ Espera você are both wrong for the standard command — you want Espere!

The colloquial tu form: Fala!

Here is the wrinkle that confuses learners. In huge parts of Brazil — Rio, the South, the North and Northeast — everyday speech uses tu instead of você, and the command people actually say is the bare present-indicative form, which looks identical to the third-person verb. So falar gives the colloquial command Fala!, esperar gives Espera!, comer gives Come!

This means the same verb has two everyday command shapes, and both are correct in their register:

Negative commands are always subjunctive

Whatever you do for the affirmative, negative commands always use the subjunctive form, with não in front. There is no colloquial indicative shortcut here: even speakers who say Fala! will negate it as Não fale. (Though in very casual speech you'll also hear the indicative negated, Não fala!, especially in tu-regions — but the subjunctive Não fale is the safe, standard choice everywhere.)

So the cleanest rule for a learner who wants one consistent system: use the subjunctive form for both affirmative and negative commands (Espere / Não espere). You will always be correct and sound polished, if slightly more formal than the relaxed Espera.

Softeners: how Brazilians avoid sounding bossy

A bare command can feel abrupt in any language. Brazilians routinely cushion imperatives with a few small words. The most important is por favor ("please"), but two colloquial particles are just as common: aí and só.

aí (literally "there") tacked onto a command makes it sound casual and chummy, like adding "for me" / "real quick." só ("just / only") downplays the size of the favor.

Notice Me ajuda aí puts the object pronoun before the verb — starting a sentence with Me is completely normal and natural in Brazilian Portuguese, even though prescriptive grammar frowns on it. The diminutive segundinho ("a tiny second") in the second example is another softener Brazilians love: shrinking the word shrinks the imposition.

The polite alternative: ask, don't command

The most natural way to be genuinely polite in Brazil is often not an imperative at all, but a yes/no question with poder ("can/could") or dar para ("would it be possible to"). This is the everyday equivalent of English "Could you…?"

Dá para…? (often pronounced and even written Dá pra…?) is an extremely common, friendly request frame with no neat one-word English match — it asks whether something is feasible rather than ordering it done.

Common Mistakes

Key takeaways

• The standard command is the subjunctive você form (Espere! Faça! Coma!); the relaxed colloquial command is the indicative tu form (Espera! Faz! Come!). Both are correct — stay consistent.
• Negative commands are always subjunctive: Não fale, Não esqueça, Não se preocupe.
• Soften commands with por favor, the casual particles aí and só, and diminutives (um segundinho).
• The most polite option is often a question: Você pode…? / Dá pra…? rather than a direct order.