Most Romanian singular imperatives can be guessed: you borrow a present-tense form (the 3sg for transitives, the 2sg for intransitives) and you are usually right. But a small cluster of the highest-frequency verbs in the language refuses to play along. A face does not give *face!; it gives fă!. A veni does not give *vine!; it gives vino!. These irregular singular imperatives follow no derivable rule — they are simply old, worn-smooth forms that survived because they are used hundreds of times a day. The good news is that there are only about a dozen of them, and once you bank them as vocabulary, the regular system covers almost everything else. This page is that list, with the natural sentences that fix each one in your ear.
Why these are irregular — and why so few
Irregularity in language clusters on the words used most. The verbs below — do, come, say, give, take, bring, be, go, stay, run, be quiet — are exactly the ones a speaker reaches for constantly, especially as commands. High use protects irregular forms from being "regularized" by analogy, the way English keeps went instead of inventing *goed. So the very frequency that makes these imperatives essential is also why they are irregular: they were used too often to ever get tidied up. Treat them as a closed list to memorize, not a pattern to extend.
The core list
These are the imperatives you must know cold. Each is the affirmative singular (the form you say to one person you address as tu).
| Verb | Imperative 2sg | Meaning | Plural (regular) |
|---|---|---|---|
| a face (to do / make) | fă! | Do! / Make! | faceți! |
| a veni (to come) | vino! | Come! | veniți! |
| a zice (to say) | zi! | Say it! / Go on! | ziceți! |
| a aduce (to bring) | adu! | Bring! | aduceți! |
| a lua (to take) | ia! | Take! | luați! |
| a da (to give) | dă! | Give! | dați! |
| a bea (to drink) | bea! | Drink! | beți! |
| a fi (to be) | fii! | Be! | fiți! |
| a sta (to stay / sit) | stai! | Stay! / Wait! / Sit! | stați! |
| a se duce (to go [off]) | du-te! | Go! | duceți-vă! |
| a fugi (to run) | fugi! | Run! / Beat it! | fugiți! |
| a tăcea (to be quiet) | taci! | Be quiet! / Shut up! | tăceți! |
A few of these are "irregular" only in being shorter than you would expect. Fugi! and taci! actually line up with the 2sg present (tu fugi, tu taci), but they make the list because learners reliably try to lengthen them (*fugește!, *tace!) by false analogy with the -ește verbs. Bea! likewise just looks too bare to be right — but it is.
In natural use
The point of these forms is that you hear them in real speech far more than their regular cousins. Here they are in sentences a Romanian would actually say.
Fă-mi și mie un ceai, te rog.
Make me a tea too, please.
Vino încoace, vreau să-ți arăt ceva.
Come over here, I want to show you something.
Zi-mi tot, nu sări peste nimic.
Tell me everything, don't skip anything.
Adu-mi un pahar cu apă, te rog.
Bring me a glass of water, please.
Ia loc, te rog, vorbim imediat.
Have a seat, please, we'll talk in a moment. (lit. 'take a seat')
Dă-mi telefonul un pic, vreau să verific ceva.
Give me the phone for a second, I want to check something.
Bea apă, ai stat toată ziua în soare.
Drink some water, you've been out in the sun all day.
Stai liniștit, mă ocup eu de tot.
Don't worry, I'll handle everything. (lit. 'stay calm')
Du-te și culcă-te, ești frânt de oboseală.
Go to bed, you're dead tired.
Taci puțin, vreau să aud ce spune.
Be quiet for a moment, I want to hear what he's saying.
Forms that shift when a clitic attaches
Several of these change shape when you hang a pronoun on the end. Adu! becomes ad-o! before the feminine o (Bring it!), and ia! gives ia-l! / ia-o! (Take it!). Dă! and fă! keep their accented vowel: dă-mi! (give me!), fă-o! (do it!). The clitic mechanics in full — including the affirmative-behind / negative-in-front flip — live on the imperatives with clitics page.
Adu-o și pe sora ta la petrecere.
Bring your sister to the party too.
Cartea e pe raft — ia-o, dacă vrei.
The book's on the shelf — take it, if you want.
Two special members: a fi and a se duce
A fi (fii!) and a se duce (du-te!) are the two most-used items on the list, and they each carry quirks worth flagging:
- Fii! is spelled with a double i and is the backbone of countless everyday exhortations (Fii atent!, Fii cuminte!). Its negative is just fi — single i — so Fii! / Nu fi!. Because a fi and its partner a avea drive so many daily commands, they get their own dedicated page: imperatives of a fi and a avea.
- Du-te! is reflexive, so the clitic te is part of the command. In the negative it detaches and moves in front: Nu te duce!. Never say *duce-te or *du alone.
Fii sincer cu mine: ți-a plăcut sau nu?
Be honest with me: did you like it or not?
Nu te duce singur, e periculos pe întuneric.
Don't go alone, it's dangerous in the dark.
Common Mistakes
❌ Face-mi o cafea!
Incorrect — the imperative of 'a face' is the irregular 'fă', not 'face'.
✅ Fă-mi o cafea!
Make me a coffee!
❌ Vine aici!
Incorrect — 'vine' is the indicative ('he comes'); the command is the irregular 'vino'.
✅ Vino aici!
Come here!
❌ Da-mi cartea!
Incorrect — the imperative of 'a da' carries the diacritic: 'dă', not 'da' (which means 'yes').
✅ Dă-mi cartea!
Give me the book!
❌ Tace! (as a command)
Incorrect — the imperative of 'a tăcea' is the shorter 'taci'.
✅ Taci!
Be quiet!
❌ Adu-o → \*aduce-o la mine.
Incorrect — the imperative of 'a aduce' is the clipped 'adu', not the full stem 'aduce'.
✅ Adu-o la mine.
Bring it/her to me.
Key Takeaways
- A short, closed list of high-frequency verbs has irregular singular imperatives you must memorize: fă!, vino!, zi!, adu!, ia!, dă!, bea!, fii!, stai!, du-te!, fugi!, taci!.
- These ignore the usual "borrow the present form" rule — fă! not *face!, vino! not *vine!.
- The plural of these same verbs is regular (faceți!, veniți!, dați!), so only the singular needs memorizing.
- Dă! takes a diacritic (distinct from da = "yes"); fii! takes a double i; adu! and ia! reshape before a clitic (ad-o!, ia-l!).
- Ia and zi also work as conversational nudges (Ia zi!, Zi! = "go on").
Now practice Romanian
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Start learning Romanian→Related Topics
- Affirmative Imperative: tu (2sg)A2 — How to form the familiar singular command — the transitive/intransitive split (cântă! vs fugi!) and the high-frequency irregulars (vino, fii, du-te, fă) you simply must memorize.
- The Imperative: OverviewA2 — An introduction to the Romanian imperative — its two genuine forms (2sg familiar and 2pl/polite), and why everything else falls to the conjunctiv.
- The Negative ImperativeA2 — The crucial asymmetry: the negative singular command uses nu + the short infinitive (Nu cânta!, Nu veni!), not the affirmative form — while the negative plural uses nu + the indicative 2pl.
- Imperatives with Pronoun CliticsB1 — How object and reflexive clitics attach after affirmative imperatives with a hyphen, but move before negative ones.
- Imperatives of a fi and a aveaB1 — The irregular commands at the heart of daily exhortations — Fii atent!, Ai grijă!, Ai răbdare! — and why Romanian says 'HAVE care/patience' where English says 'BE careful/patient'.
- Irregular Present Verbs: Consolidated ReferenceB1 — A one-stop reference gathering the truly irregular present paradigms of Romanian — a fi, a avea, a vrea, a da, a sta, a ști, a lua, a bea — with the high-frequency ones flagged and the patterns that tie them together.