Pronoun Placement with Commands | Portuguese (Portugal) Grammar

The placement of object pronouns with Portuguese commands is one of the sharpest dividing lines between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. In Portugal, pronouns attach to the end of affirmative commands with a hyphen — dá-me, diz-lhe, levanta-te — and move in front of negative commands — não me dês, não lhe digas, não te levantes. On top of this basic switch, European Portuguese has a whole system of combined clitics (dá-mo, dá-lho), phonetic mergers after -r/-s/-z (fazê-lo, di-lo), and careful rules for euphony. Getting these right is what separates a learner who has memorized commands from one who can actually use them.

The basic rule: polarity decides placement

This is the single most important sentence on this page. Affirmative commands take enclisis; negative commands take proclisis.

Affirmative → pronoun after the verb, joined with a hyphen: fala-me, diz-lhe, senta-te.
Negative → pronoun before the verb, as a separate word: não me fales, não lhe digas, não te sentes.

Dá-me o livro.

Give me the book.

Não me dês o livro.

Don't give me the book.

Levanta-te agora.

Get up now.

Não te levantes ainda.

Don't get up yet.

Diz-lhe a verdade.

Tell him the truth.

Não lhe digas a verdade.

Don't tell him the truth.

Notice how the pronoun itself does not change — me stays me, lhe stays lhe, te stays te. What changes is its position relative to the verb. When the polarity flips, the pronoun jumps sides.

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The pragmatic logic: negation attracts clitics. The word não is a proclisis trigger — it pulls pronouns in front of the verb. This is not a rule just for imperatives; it is a general rule of European Portuguese syntax. Any negative word (não, nunca, ninguém, nada, jamais), most adverbs, and many subordinating conjunctions all pull clitics forward.

Why this matters: EP vs BR

In Brazilian Portuguese, casual speech has largely abandoned enclisis. Brazilians routinely say me dá o livro where a Portuguese speaker would say dá-me o livro. In fact, proclisis with affirmative commands in casual BR is so entrenched that Brazilians rarely even register dá-me as an option in everyday speech.

European Portuguese has not made this shift. Me dá o livro will sound ungrammatical — or at best markedly Brazilian — to a Portuguese ear. If you are learning EP, you must train yourself toward enclisis in affirmative contexts. This is one of the clearest signatures that marks a learner's Portuguese as European or Brazilian.

Dá-me um beijo. (EP)

Give me a kiss. (European standard)

Me dá um beijo. (BR)

Give me a kiss. (Brazilian casual)

Both sentences mean the same thing, and both are grammatical in their own standards. But they are not interchangeable. Use the EP pattern in Portugal.

The affirmative forms in detail

Here is what enclisis looks like across the four imperative persons with various pronouns.

Person	with me	with te	with lhe	with o/a
tu	dá-me	—	dá-lhe	dá-o / dá-a
você	dê-me	—	dê-lhe	dê-o / dê-a
nós	—	—	demos-lhe	demo-lo / demo-la
vocês	deem-me	—	deem-lhe	deem-no / deem-na

A note on the empty cells: te only pairs with tu forms (you cannot command você or vocês and refer to them as te). And me does not combine with the nós form when the speaker is part of the nós group — you cannot give yourself something.

Reflexive commands

Reflexive pronouns follow the same enclisis/proclisis rule. Each person takes its matching reflexive:

tu → te
você → se
nós → nos
vocês → se

Senta-te aqui.

Sit here. (tu)

Sente-se aqui.

Sit here. (você)

Sentemo-nos aqui.

Let's sit here.

Sentem-se aqui.

Sit here. (vocês)

Não te sentes aí.

Don't sit there. (tu)

Não se sente aí.

Don't sit there. (você)

Notice sentemo-nos in the third row: the final -s of the verb drops before the reflexive nos. This is a euphony rule discussed below.

Combined clitics: mo, to, lho, no-lo

Portuguese can stack two pronouns onto one verb: an indirect object pronoun (to whom) plus a direct object pronoun (what). In enclisis, these fuse into single merged forms.

indirect + direct	merged form	meaning
me + o	mo	it to me
me + a	ma	it (f.) to me
me + os	mos	them to me
me + as	mas	them (f.) to me
te + o	to	it to you
te + a	ta	it (f.) to you
lhe + o	lho	it to him/her
lhe + a	lha	it (f.) to him/her
lhes + o	lho	it to them
nos + o	no-lo	it to us
vos + o	vo-lo	it to you (pl., old)

Dá-mo antes que me esqueça.

Give it to me before I forget.

Diz-lho da minha parte.

Tell it to him from me.

Traz-mas amanhã.

Bring them (f.) to me tomorrow.

Empresta-lha até ao fim-de-semana.

Lend it (f.) to her until the weekend.

Faça-mo antes de sair.

Do it for me before you leave. (você)

Combined clitics are common in EP writing and still alive in careful speech, though in colloquial spoken Portuguese speakers often avoid them by rephrasing (dá-me isso instead of dá-mo). If you can read and use them, you are operating at a B2 level or higher.

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The merged forms mo, to, lho, ma, ta, lha collapse what English expresses as "it-to-me, it-to-you, it-to-him." No English equivalent exists, so it takes practice to internalize. Start by recognizing them in reading; using them fluently comes later.

In proclisis, the merger disappears

When the pronoun moves in front (because of não or another trigger), the combined form does not merge. The two pronouns stay separate words.

Dá-mo.

Give it to me.

Não mo dês.

Don't give it to me.

Diz-lho.

Tell it to him.

Não lho digas.

Don't tell it to him.

Strictly speaking, even in proclisis the indirect and direct forms can be written merged (não mo dês) — this is the standard. What changes is only the position relative to the verb, not the fact of the merger. The point is: não me o dês is not the correct rendering; it is não mo dês.

The phonetic rule: -lo, -la after -r, -s, -z

Here is where European Portuguese shows some of its most beautiful phonological logic. When the direct object pronouns o, a, os, as attach to a verb form ending in -r, -s, or -z, two things happen at once:

The verb loses its final -r, -s, or -z.
The pronoun gains an initial l-, becoming lo, la, los, las.

This rule applies to infinitives, several conjugated forms ending in -s (such as tu present indicative, nós imperatives, vós forms), and to the irregular tu imperatives faz, diz, traz. Watch it in action:

fazer + o → fazê-lo ("to do it") — note the circumflex, preserving stress.
dizê-la ("to say it, f.") — infinitive + feminine direct object.
comprá-los ("to buy them") — infinitive comprar
- os.
faz + o → fá-lo! ("do it!") — tu imperative of fazer plus direct object.
diz + o → di-lo! ("say it!") — tu imperative of dizer plus direct object.
põe + o → põe-no! ("put it!") — põe ends in a nasal, so o becomes no (see next section).

Fá-lo agora!

Do it now!

Trá-lo amanhã, se puderes.

Bring it tomorrow, if you can. (traz + o → trá-lo: verb ends in -z, so -z drops and o becomes lo)

Di-lo em voz alta.

Say it out loud.

Levanta-o devagar.

Lift it slowly.

For longer infinitive forms, the accent is essential: fazê-lo, dizê-la, vê-lo, pô-lo. These stress marks are not decorative — they preserve the original stress of the verb when the final consonant drops.

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Why does the pronoun grow an l-? This is a straight phonological inheritance from Latin. The Latin article illum (from which both our definite article and our direct object pronoun descend) still had its initial l- in some contexts, and when the preceding word ended in -r, -s, or -z, the consonant cluster triggered a simplification that kept the l-. Modern EP preserves this ancient pattern; BR tends to avoid it by restructuring the sentence.

The nasal rule: -no, -na after -m, -ão, -õe

A parallel rule applies to verb forms ending in a nasal sound. When the direct object pronouns o, a, os, as attach to a verb ending in a nasal (-m, -ão, -õe), the pronoun gains an initial n-, becoming no, na, nos, nas.

põe + o → põe-no ("put it")
compram + o → compram-no ("they buy it")
fazem + a → fazem-na ("they do it, f.")

Põe-no na prateleira.

Put it on the shelf.

Façam-na amanhã, por favor.

Do it tomorrow, please. (vocês)

Digam-no em voz alta.

Say it out loud. (vocês)

This rule is less frequent in imperative contexts than the -l- rule, because fewer imperative forms end in nasals. But põe, and the vocês imperatives (falem, comam, ponham), do trigger it.

The -s drop with reflexive nós

One of the prettiest quirks in EP phonology. When the synthetic nós imperative attaches to the reflexive nos, the final -s of the verb drops:

levantemos + nos → levantemo-nos
sentemos + nos → sentemo-nos
despachemos + nos → despachemo-nos

Levantemo-nos e saiamos juntos.

Let's get up and leave together.

Sentemo-nos aqui à sombra.

Let's sit here in the shade.

Despachemo-nos, o autocarro parte em cinco minutos.

Let's hurry, the bus leaves in five minutes.

The reason is euphony: levantemosnos is ugly to pronounce, so the cluster simplifies. This rule is mandatory in careful EP — a writer who produces levantemos-nos looks either non-native or inattentive.

Formatting and accents after enclisis

When you attach a pronoun to a verb with a hyphen, the stress of the verb must be preserved. In some cases this requires adding a written accent that the verb did not have on its own:

falar (no accent) + o → falá-lo (add acute to preserve stress on -á)
dizer (no accent on this form) + o → dizê-lo (add circumflex)
pôr (already has circumflex) + o → pô-lo (circumflex preserved)
vê (already has acute) + o → vê-lo (no change needed)

The principle: the written accent marks the stressed syllable of the underlying verb, and it stays even after the pronoun attaches. If dropping the final consonant would push the reader into misreading the stress, the accent is there to prevent the error.

Combined real-world examples

Here are longer examples to see the full machinery at work.

Traz-me o bolo mas não mo dês à frente das crianças.

Bring me the cake but don't give it to me in front of the kids.

Diz-lhe que sim, e depois diz-mo a mim também.

Tell him yes, and then tell it to me too.

Empresta o livro ao teu irmão, mas pede-lho de volta amanhã.

Lend the book to your brother, but ask him for it back tomorrow.

Faça o relatório e envie-mo por correio eletrónico.

Write the report and send it to me by email.

Não me digas que perdeste as chaves outra vez.

Don't tell me you lost your keys again.

Sentem-se, faça favor, e não se preocupem.

Have a seat, please, and don't worry.

Common Mistakes

❌ Me dá o livro.

Incorrect in EP — proclisis with an affirmative command is Brazilian, not European.

✅ Dá-me o livro.

Give me the book.

This is the single most common EP learner error, especially from those who have learned Portuguese via Brazilian media. In Portugal, the pronoun attaches to the end of an affirmative command with a hyphen.

❌ Não dá-me o livro.

Incorrect — enclisis is impossible with a negative command.

✅ Não me dês o livro.

Don't give me the book.

The moment não appears, the pronoun must move in front. Enclisis with a negative command is ungrammatical in every register of Portuguese.

❌ Faz-o agora.

Incorrect — the verb ends in -z, so the merger fá-lo is required.

✅ Fá-lo agora.

Do it now.

When the verb ends in -r, -s, or -z and the direct object is o, a, os, as, the merger is mandatory. Faz-o is not a grammatical form.

❌ Dá-me-o.

Incorrect — two separate clitics must merge into mo.

✅ Dá-mo.

Give it to me.

When two pronouns stack, they must merge into a single form. Me + o = mo; lhe + o = lho. You cannot write them as separate pieces joined by hyphens.

❌ Levantemos-nos cedo.

Incorrect — the -s drops before the reflexive nos.

✅ Levantemo-nos cedo.

Let's get up early.

The -s drop is mandatory in careful EP, not optional. Always levantemo-nos, never levantemos-nos.

❌ Poe-o aqui.

Incorrect — verb ending in nasal requires the pronoun to become -no.

✅ Põe-no aqui.

Put it here.

After a nasal ending like põe, the pronoun o must become no: põe-no, not põe-o.

❌ Traz-o amanhã?

Incorrect — verb ends in -z, so the -z drops and the pronoun gains l-: trá-lo.

✅ Trá-lo amanhã?

Will you bring it tomorrow?

After a verb ending in -r, -s, or -z, the merger is mandatory. Traz + o never stays as traz-o in standard EP; it contracts to trá-lo, with the acute accent preserving the stress.

Edge cases and fine points

What happens in the nós "let's" form with direct objects

When -amos or -emos meets a direct object o/a/os/as, the final -s drops and the pronoun gains an l-:

vamos + o → vamo-lo (rare, often avoided in speech)
digamos + o → digamo-lo
façamos + a → façamo-la

Façamo-la amanhã, é mais prático.

Let's do it tomorrow, it's more practical.

Digamo-lo em voz alta para toda a gente ouvir.

Let's say it out loud so everyone can hear.

When nós synthetic commands meet combined clitics

You can stack: digamos + lhe + o → digamos-lho ("let's say it to him"). These are rare but grammatical, and they appear mainly in writing.

Digamos-lho antes que seja tarde.

Let's tell him before it's too late.

Imperatives in subordinate clauses

Imperatives only occur in main clauses. If you need to express a command indirectly (reported speech, subordinate clause), you shift to the subjunctive or another construction: ele disse-me para eu falar ("he told me to speak"). Pronoun placement then follows the general rules for those constructions.

Quick-reference summary

Form	Pronoun position	Example
Affirmative tu	After, with hyphen	dá-me, diz-lhe
Affirmative você	After, with hyphen	dê-me, diga-lhe
Affirmative nós	After, with hyphen; -s drops before nos	sentemo-nos, façamo-lo
Affirmative vocês	After, with hyphen	deem-me, digam-lhe
All negative commands	Before, as separate word	não me dês, não lhe diga

Key takeaways

Affirmative commands take enclisis (pronoun after, hyphen). Negative commands take proclisis (pronoun before).
The word não pulls pronouns forward — this is a general EP rule, not unique to imperatives.
Combined clitics merge in enclisis: me + o = mo, lhe + o = lho, te + a = ta.
After -r, -s, -z, the verb drops its final consonant and the pronoun gains l-: faz-o → fá-lo.
After nasal endings, the pronoun gains n-: põe-o → põe-no.
The -s drops before reflexive nos: levantemo-nos, sentemo-nos.
This system is the clearest signature of European vs Brazilian Portuguese syntax.

For the underlying command forms, see tu affirmative, você affirmative, and negative commands. For the broader pattern of clitic placement across all EP grammar, see the dedicated clitic placement pages under pronouns.