Once you can give a basic command in Spanish — habla, come, escribe — the next thing you need is to attach pronouns to it: tell me, give it to me, sit down, get up. In the affirmative imperative, pronouns do something that may feel strange to an English speaker at first: they stick to the end of the verb and form a single word with it. Di (tell) + me (to me) + lo (it) becomes a single orthographic word: dímelo. This page shows you exactly how that attachment works, in what order the pronouns line up, what the vosotros form does with reflexive verbs, and where the obligatory written accent comes from.
The core rule: clitics attach as suffixes
Object pronouns (me, te, lo, la, le, nos, os, los, las, les, se) and reflexive pronouns are clitics — unstressed grammatical particles that lean on a host word. In the affirmative imperative, the host is the verb itself, and the clitic follows it as a written suffix.
Háblame más despacio, por favor.
Speak to me more slowly, please.
Dímelo otra vez, que no te he oído.
Tell me again, I didn't hear you.
Levántate, que llegamos tarde.
Get up, we're going to be late.
Notice three things at once: the pronoun is written attached, with no space and no hyphen; the original spelling of the verb stem is preserved (habla is still recognisable inside háblame); and when the resulting word would otherwise be mispronounced, a written accent appears. We'll come back to the accent below — and the whole rule for accents gets its own page at accents on imperatives with pronouns.
What this looks like compared to English
English keeps pronouns as separate words: tell me, give it to me, sit down. Spanish writes the same idea as one word: dime, dámelo, siéntate. There is no English construction that behaves quite this way — even gimme (a colloquial blend of give me) only fuses one pronoun and never appears in formal writing. In Spanish, the fusion is obligatory and standard at every register.
The order of pronouns: indirect before direct
When two object pronouns appear together, the order is fixed and runs exactly like in non-imperative sentences: indirect object pronoun first, direct object pronoun second. So me (to me, IO) comes before lo (it, DO), and the whole package attaches to the verb.
| Verb |
|
| Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| di | dime | dímelo | tell it to me |
| da | dame | dámelo | give it to me |
| trae | tráeme | tráemelo | bring it to me |
| manda | mándame | mándamelo | send it to me |
| compra | cómprame | cómpramelo | buy it for me |
The order Dilóme or Diloma is impossible. There is no situation in modern Spanish in which the direct object pronoun precedes the indirect object pronoun.
¿Tienes el contrato? Pásamelo cuando puedas.
Do you have the contract? Pass it to me whenever you can.
Si te llama mi madre, dile que voy de camino.
If my mother calls you, tell her I'm on my way.
Le/les + lo/la/los/las → se lo
When the indirect object pronoun is le or les and the direct object pronoun starts with l- (lo, la, los, las), Spanish replaces le/les with se. This is purely a phonetic rule — Spanish refuses to say le lo — and it applies inside attached clusters just as it does in normal sentences.
Dáselo a tu hermano cuando lo veas.
Give it to your brother when you see him.
No tengo el libro aquí; pídeselo a Marta.
I don't have the book here; ask Marta for it.
So da + le + lo is not dálelo (impossible) but dáselo. The se here has nothing to do with the reflexive se; it is purely a euphonic stand-in for le/les.
Reflexive verbs: levántate, siéntate, cállate
With reflexive verbs, the reflexive pronoun also attaches to the affirmative imperative.
Siéntate aquí, que tengo algo que contarte.
Sit here, I have something to tell you.
Cállate un momento, que no oigo la tele.
Be quiet a moment, I can't hear the TV.
Pruébatelo antes de comprarlo.
Try it on before you buy it.
In the last example, the verb probarse (to try on) is reflexive, and the direct object pronoun lo (it) joins the reflexive te. Again: reflexive first, direct object second, all attached to the verb.
The Peninsular vosotros form: the -d drops before os
Peninsular Spanish uses vosotros for the plural informal "you," and its affirmative imperative ends in -d: hablad, comed, escribid. When vosotros is attached to clitics, two rules collide.
First, with non-reflexive pronouns, the -d stays:
Decídmelo cuanto antes.
Tell me as soon as possible. (to several people)
Mandádmelo por correo cuando lo terminéis.
Send it to me by mail when you finish it.
Second — and this is the part that catches everyone — when the clitic os is attached to a reflexive vosotros imperative, the final -d drops. So levantad + os is not levantados but levantaos; callad + os is callaos; poned + os is poneos.
| Infinitive | vosotros imperative |
|
|---|---|---|
| levantarse | levantad | levantaos |
| sentarse | sentad | sentaos |
| callarse | callad | callaos |
| ponerse | poned | poneos |
| marcharse | marchad | marchaos |
Poneos el abrigo, que hace frío fuera.
Put your coats on, it's cold outside. (to several people)
Sentaos donde queráis, hay sitio de sobra.
Sit wherever you like, there's plenty of room.
The single exception is idos (go away — from irse), which keeps the -d in standard prescriptive grammar; in everyday speech you'll constantly hear iros, and the RAE now accepts both. (informal) iros, (formal/prescriptive) idos.
When vosotros has both a reflexive os and a direct object pronoun, the structure becomes longer but follows the same logic — reflexive first, DO second, -d drops before os:
Ponéoslo todo, que nos vamos en cinco minutos.
Put it all on, we're leaving in five minutes.
Probáoslos antes de decidir.
Try them on before deciding.
Usted and ustedes commands attach pronouns too
For formal commands the same attachment rule holds:
Dígame su nombre, por favor.
Tell me your name, please. (formal)
Siéntense donde puedan.
Sit wherever you can. (formal plural)
In Spain, ustedes is used in formal contexts — official settings, talking to strangers in service interactions, addressing older people you don't know. In conversation among friends, vosotros is the default. Ustedes with attached pronouns produces forms like dígamelo, háganlo, siéntense.
Why the accent appears
Spanish stress rules say that a word ending in a vowel, -n or -s is stressed on the second-to-last syllable (the paroxytone pattern). When you attach a clitic, you add a syllable, which would otherwise shift the apparent stress. To preserve the original spoken stress, a written accent is added.
Compare:
- habla (2 syllables, stress on ha) — no accent needed because the default rule already puts stress there.
- háblame (3 syllables, stress still on ha) — accent required, because the default rule would now stress bla.
- háblamelo (4 syllables, stress still on ha) — accent required, even more clearly.
We treat this in detail on the accents page, but the short version is: most affirmative imperatives need a written accent as soon as you attach even one clitic, unless the verb is already a monosyllable.
Common Mistakes
❌ Di me lo otra vez.
Incorrect — pronouns must be written attached, not separated by spaces.
✅ Dímelo otra vez.
Tell me again.
❌ Dalome.
Incorrect — DO cannot precede IO; the order is always IO + DO (lo can never come before me).
✅ Dámelo.
Give it to me.
❌ Levantados, que ya es tarde.
Incorrect — the -d of vosotros drops before the reflexive os.
✅ Levantaos, que ya es tarde.
Get up, it's already late.
❌ Dálelo a tu hermana.
Incorrect — le + lo must become se lo, even when attached.
✅ Dáselo a tu hermana.
Give it to your sister.
❌ Hablame más alto.
Incorrect — háblame needs a written accent to preserve stress on the first syllable.
✅ Háblame más alto.
Speak louder to me.
Key takeaways
- In affirmative commands, clitics attach to the end of the verb and write as a single word.
- The order is fixed: reflexive / indirect object first, direct object second.
- Le/les
- lo/la/los/las becomes se lo / se la / se los / se las — including when attached.
- The vosotros ending -d drops before reflexive os (levantaos, sentaos) — the single fossilised exception is idos.
- Adding pronouns usually forces a written accent to keep the original stress in place — see the dedicated accents page.
The negative imperative does the opposite: pronouns detach and move before the verb. That's covered on pronouns with the negative imperative.
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- Pronombres con el imperativo negativoA2 — In negative commands, pronouns detach from the verb and move in front of it as separate words — no me lo digas, no te levantes, no os preocupéis.
- Acentos en los imperativos con pronombresA2 — When pronouns attach to an affirmative imperative, a written accent often becomes obligatory to preserve the verb's original spoken stress — dímelo, cómelo, levántate.
- Imperativo afirmativo de tú: regularA1 — The simplest of all Spanish imperatives — for regular verbs the affirmative tú command is identical to the 3rd-person singular present indicative.
- Imperativo: visión generalA2 — The master map of the Spanish imperative — affirmative and negative commands for tú, vosotros, usted, ustedes and nosotros — with the peninsular vosotros form as its headline feature.
- Orden de los pronombres: SE-TE-ME-LOA2 — When two or more object pronouns cluster before the same verb, Spanish always orders them the same way — and once you learn the mnemonic SE-TE-ME-LO, you never have to think about it again.