Eight of the most common verbs in Spanish have an irregular, shortened tú affirmative imperative. There is no underlying rule that predicts the forms — they are leftover short imperatives from medieval Spanish, preserved in modern usage by sheer frequency. You will hear and produce them dozens of times a day. The good news is that, because they are so few, they can be memorised in a single sitting.
The eight forms
| Infinitive | Meaning | tú imperative |
|---|---|---|
| decir | to say, tell | di |
| hacer | to do, make | haz |
| ir | to go | ve |
| poner | to put | pon |
| salir | to leave, go out | sal |
| ser | to be | sé |
| tener | to have | ten |
| venir | to come | ven |
All eight share a profile: monosyllabic (one syllable each), no inflectional ending, ultra-frequent. Note that sé (the imperative of ser) carries an obligatory accent — without it, se is the reflexive pronoun, an entirely different word.
A mnemonic that actually works
The standard learner mnemonic is "Vin Diesel has ten weapons", which gives you the initial letters in a memorable order:
- V — ven (come)
- D — di (say)
- H — haz (do, make)
- T — ten (have)
- S — sé (be)
- S — sal (leave)
- T — there is no eighth T — keep going
- V — ve (go)
That leaves one verb unaccounted for: pon (put). Add it on the end as "and Vin's pon*ytail", or accept that you simply need to remember *pon separately. Most learners find that pon is the easiest of the eight to remember anyway, because it appears in so many high-frequency phrases (pon la mesa, ponte el abrigo).
Examples in natural use
Dime la verdad de una vez, no aguanto más estas evasivas.
Tell me the truth once and for all, I can't stand these evasions anymore.
Haz lo que te dé la gana, pero luego no me vengas con lamentaciones.
Do whatever you feel like, but don't come complaining to me afterwards.
Ve a por el pan, anda, que se nos acaba.
Go and get some bread, please, we're running out.
Pon la mesa mientras yo termino de cocinar.
Set the table while I finish cooking.
Sal del coche, vamos a echar gasolina.
Get out of the car, we're going to fill up.
Sé bueno con tu abuela, que ha venido hasta aquí solo por verte.
Be good to your grandmother, she came all the way just to see you.
Ten cuidado al cruzar, hay un punto ciego en esa esquina.
Be careful when you cross, there's a blind spot at that corner.
Ven aquí ahora mismo y dame un abrazo.
Come here right now and give me a hug.
Adding pronouns: where the forms get interesting
When pronouns attach, the short stems behave just as the regular imperatives do — they attach to the end as a single written word, with an accent if needed to preserve stress. Because the base form is only one syllable, an accent is required as soon as the resulting word is three syllables or longer.
| Form |
| |
|---|---|---|
| di | dime | dímelo |
| haz | hazlo | házmelo |
| ve | vete (reflexive irse) | — |
| pon | ponte, ponlo | póntelo |
| sal | salte (intransitive use) | — |
| sé | sé bueno (no clitic; ser doesn't take direct objects) | — |
| ten | tenlo, tenme | ténmelo |
| ven | vente | — |
A few details deserve highlighting:
- Ve → vete (= go away, for irse). The reflexive form vete is far more common in everyday speech than the bare ve, which mostly survives in ve a por… and ve a ver.
- Pon → ponte. Ponte el abrigo (put your coat on) is the model phrase here; ponte de pie (stand up) is another high-frequency case.
- Sal → salte. The verb salirse exists (= to leak, to step out of) and produces salte. But the bare sal is more common.
- Ten → tenlo, ténlo? No — tenlo is two syllables and the stress naturally falls on the first, so no accent is needed. Tenme the same.
- Ven → vente (= come along, come with). Vente as in vente con nosotros is one of the warmest invitations in peninsular Spanish.
Vete a la cama, mañana hay que madrugar.
Go to bed, we have to get up early tomorrow.
Ponte el abrigo, que fuera hace un frío que pela.
Put your coat on, it's freezing out there.
Vente conmigo al mercado, voy un momento.
Come along with me to the market, I'm just popping in.
Dímelo todo, no te dejes nada por contar.
Tell me everything, don't leave anything out.
Sé — the spelling trap
The imperative sé (= be) is the single most error-prone form in this list, because Spanish has three different words spelled se or sé:
- sé (with accent) = "be!" (imperative of ser) or "I know" (1st-singular indicative of saber).
- se (no accent) = reflexive/impersonal pronoun, as in se lava, se vende.
The accent is the only thing distinguishing the imperative from the pronoun in writing. A sentence like Sé bueno con él ("be good to him") becomes incomprehensible if written Se bueno con él — that string is not Spanish at all. Always type the accent.
Sé paciente con tu hermano, está pasando por una época difícil.
Be patient with your brother, he's going through a tough time.
Sé que no te apetece, pero ven igualmente.
I know you don't feel like it, but come anyway. (sé = I know, from saber — same spelling as the imperative)
Why these eight and no others
The eight irregular tú imperatives are leftover short imperatives from earlier stages of Spanish. They survive because they are exactly the verbs that get commanded most often in daily life: telling someone to say, do, go, put, leave, be, have, come covers a huge fraction of all commands a parent gives a child, all instructions one friend gives another, all directions a teacher gives a class. Other irregular verbs (conocer, traducir, traer) are too rare in imperative use to have preserved a short form, so they default to the regular pattern.
A useful generalisation: of these eight, six (decir, hacer, poner, salir, tener, venir) belong to the yo-go class — verbs whose 1st-singular present indicative ends in -go (digo, hago, pongo, salgo, tengo, vengo). The two outliers are ir (voy) and ser (soy). The yo-go connection is a useful memory hook: if a verb has -go in yo form, it is a candidate for a short imperative.
What about ver?
A common question: doesn't ver (to see) have a short imperative too? It does — ve — but the form is identical to the imperative of ir, which causes occasional ambiguity. In practice, ¡ve! is almost always understood as "go!", and ¡mira! (look!) is used for the seeing meaning. Ver survives in velo (= see it / watch it) and a few set phrases.
Mira esta foto, ¿no te recuerda a algo?
Look at this photo, doesn't it remind you of something? (mira preferred over ve for 'look')
Common Mistakes
❌ Dice la verdad.
Incorrect as a command — this is the indicative 'he tells the truth'. The tú imperative of decir is the short form di.
✅ Di la verdad.
Tell the truth.
❌ Hace los deberes ya.
Incorrect as a command — this is the indicative 'he does his homework'. The tú imperative of hacer is haz.
✅ Haz los deberes ya.
Do your homework now.
❌ Pone la mesa, por favor.
Incorrect as a command — this is the indicative 'he sets the table'. The tú imperative of poner is pon.
✅ Pon la mesa, por favor.
Set the table, please.
❌ Se bueno con tu hermana.
Incorrect — missing the accent. Without it, the word is the reflexive pronoun se and the sentence parses as ungrammatical Spanish.
✅ Sé bueno con tu hermana.
Be good to your sister.
❌ Tene cuidado en la escalera.
Incorrect — the regular pattern (3rd-sg indicative tiene) does not apply; tener has the short form ten.
✅ Ten cuidado en la escalera.
Be careful on the stairs.
❌ Veni aquí.
Incorrect — this is the vos form (Argentina, Uruguay). Peninsular tú uses ven.
✅ Ven aquí.
Come here.
Key Takeaways
- The eight short imperatives — di, haz, ve, pon, sal, sé, ten, ven — must be memorised; no rule derives them.
- The "Vin Diesel has ten weapons" mnemonic (plus pon as the orphan) gives you the initials. The forms themselves are one syllable each.
- Sé always carries an accent — distinguishing it from the reflexive pronoun se. Skipping the accent makes the sentence ungrammatical.
- Six of the eight (di, haz, pon, sal, ten, ven) belong to the yo-go class. The link is not predictive but a useful memory hook.
- Attached pronouns work just as for regular imperatives, with accents added to preserve original stress.
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Start learning Spanish→Related Topics
- 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 negativo de túA2 — How to tell a friend not to do something — no + 2nd-singular present subjunctive — with the same form for every verb in Spanish, regular or irregular.
- 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.
- Pronombres con el imperativo afirmativoA2 — In affirmative commands, object and reflexive pronouns attach to the end of the verb to form a single written word — dímelo, levántate, ponéoslo.
- Verbos con 'yo' en -go: tener, poner, salir, hacer, venir, decirA2 — The yo-go family — a dozen high-frequency verbs whose only present-tense irregularity is an inserted -g- in the first-person singular.