The ustedes imperative is the form you use to command two or more people you're addressing formally. ¡Hablen más despacio!, ¡Pasen ustedes!, ¡No se preocupen! Like the usted imperative, it uses one identical form for both affirmative and negative — namely the 3rd-person plural of the present subjunctive. What makes this form different in Spain from in Latin America isn't the grammar (the form is identical worldwide) but its scope. In Latin America, ustedes covers all plural address, formal and informal alike. In Spain, ustedes is reserved for clearly formal plural contexts, and informal groups are addressed as vosotros with the form hablad. This split is the single biggest grammatical difference between peninsular and Latin American Spanish.
The rule: present subjunctive, 3rd plural
Take the 3rd-person plural of the present subjunctive. The endings are -en for -ar verbs and -an for -er and -ir verbs. The form is identical whether you're commanding the action or prohibiting it — only the no changes.
| Infinitive | Affirmative | Negative | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| hablar | hablen | no hablen | (don't) speak |
| trabajar | trabajen | no trabajen | (don't) work |
| cantar | canten | no canten | (don't) sing |
| comer | coman | no coman | (don't) eat |
| beber | beban | no beban | (don't) drink |
| vivir | vivan | no vivan | (don't) live |
| escribir | escriban | no escriban | (don't) write |
Pasen, pasen, no se queden en la puerta.
Come in, come in, don't stand at the door.
Coman cuando quieran, la comida está lista.
Eat whenever you want, the food is ready.
No hablen todos a la vez, por favor.
Don't all talk at once, please.
Irregulars
Because the form is the present subjunctive, it inherits all the standard subjunctive irregularities. The yo-go verbs use their -g- stem: tengan, pongan, salgan, hagan, digan, vengan, oigan. Verbs with completely irregular subjunctives behave the same way.
| Infinitive | Ustedes imperative | English |
|---|---|---|
| tener | tengan / no tengan | (don't) have |
| poner | pongan / no pongan | (don't) put |
| hacer | hagan / no hagan | (don't) do |
| decir | digan / no digan | (don't) say |
| venir | vengan / no vengan | (don't) come |
| salir | salgan / no salgan | (don't) leave |
| ir | vayan / no vayan | (don't) go |
| ser | sean / no sean | (don't) be |
| estar | estén / no estén | (don't) be (location/state) |
| dar | den / no den | (don't) give |
| saber | sepan / no sepan | (don't) know |
| haber | hayan / no hayan | (don't) have (aux) |
Tengan ustedes paciencia, el director llegará en cinco minutos.
Please be patient, the director will arrive in five minutes.
No vayan por la salida principal, está cerrada — vayan por el lateral.
Don't go out the main exit, it's closed — go through the side.
Estén tranquilos, todo está bajo control.
Stay calm, everything is under control.
The form estén carries an obligatory accent on the -é- because the regular subjunctive stress pattern for estar places the stress there. Without the accent, the form would be misread.
Stem changes
Stem-changers behave the same as in the usted form: the change propagates from the 1st-person singular indicative.
| Infinitive | Yo (indicative) | Ustedes imperative |
|---|---|---|
| pensar (e→ie) | pienso | piensen / no piensen |
| contar (o→ue) | cuento | cuenten / no cuenten |
| volver (o→ue) | vuelvo | vuelvan / no vuelvan |
| dormir (o→ue/u) | duermo | duerman / no duerman |
| pedir (e→i) | pido | pidan / no pidan |
| conocer | conozco | conozcan / no conozcan |
Piensen bien antes de aceptar la oferta.
Think carefully before you accept the offer.
Pidan lo que quieran, invita la casa.
Order whatever you want, it's on the house.
Pronouns: attached or before
Same rule as every other imperative: pronouns attach to the back of the affirmative form and slide to the front of the negative. The reflexive se for ustedes is identical to the se of usted (Spanish uses se as the 3rd-person reflexive regardless of number), so context — usually a plural object or a clearly addressed group — disambiguates.
Siéntense donde prefieran, hay sitio de sobra.
Sit wherever you prefer, there's plenty of room.
Dígannos sus nombres, por favor, para registrarlos.
Tell us your names, please, so we can register you.
No se molesten, ya casi he terminado.
Don't trouble yourselves, I'm almost done.
When pronouns attach to the affirmative form, the original stress has to be preserved with a written accent, so most attached forms are esdrújulas: siéntense (sit down), díganme (tell me), and when two pronouns pile on, sobreesdrújulas: dígan + me + lo → díganmelo. Without the accent the word would be misread on the wrong syllable.
The peninsular vs Latin American difference
Here is the single most consequential dialect difference in Spanish grammar:
- In Spain: vosotros covers all informal plural address (friends, family, classmates, colleagues you're on a first-name basis with). Ustedes covers formal plural address (clients, strangers in formal settings, audiences in official contexts). The two are not interchangeable.
- In all of Latin America: vosotros does not exist in current speech. Ustedes covers every plural address — formal and informal alike. A Mexican mother says ¡Coman ya, niños! ("Eat already, kids!") with no formality implied.
This means hablen in Spain almost always carries some formality. If a Spaniard says hablen to a group, the addressees are either strangers, customers, an audience, or people significantly older. To address friends or family, a Spaniard switches to hablad.
For learners trained in a Latin American variety, the trap is using ustedes for groups of friends in Spain — which sounds excessively formal, even cold. A Mexican learner arriving in Madrid who tells their Spanish friends "siéntense" instead of "sentaos" signals immediately that they learned Spanish elsewhere.
For learners trained in peninsular Spanish, the symmetric trap is reaching for vosotros everywhere in Latin America — where it sounds archaic, like quoting a religious text.
(Spain — formal context) Bienvenidos, señores y señoras. Pasen, siéntense, comiencen cuando estén listos.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Come in, sit down, begin when you're ready.
(Spain — informal context) Venga, chicos, sentaos y empezad, que se enfría.
Come on, guys, sit down and start, it's getting cold.
The second example, with sentaos and empezad, would never appear in Latin America — every Latin American speaker would say siéntense and empiecen. This is the practical difference: a Spaniard distinguishes register through verb forms, while a Latin American distinguishes register through tone, vocabulary, or context, with verb forms held constant.
Contexts where ustedes is natural in Spain
To calibrate when to use this form in Spain, here are the prototypical settings:
- Service to a group of customers: a waiter to a table, a shop assistant to multiple shoppers, a hotel receptionist to a couple checking in
- A formal audience: a speaker addressing an auditorium, a teacher at a university addressing students whose names they don't know, a religious officiant
- A courtroom or legal setting: addressing parties, witnesses, the bench
- Customer service from below: a tradesperson, a deliveryman, an employee speaking to a group of clients
- Older people in genuinely formal contexts: a respectful younger speaker addressing a group of elderly people one doesn't know personally
Si tienen ustedes alguna pregunta, levanten la mano, por favor.
If you have any questions, raise your hand, please.
Síganme, por favor, su mesa está al fondo.
Follow me, please, your table is at the back.
No se preocupen por el equipaje, lo subimos nosotros a la habitación.
Don't worry about your luggage, we'll take it up to the room.
Optional subject pronoun
As with all Spanish imperatives, the subject pronoun ustedes is normally dropped. Hablen by itself is enough. Adding ustedes is a politeness marker or a clarifier — it softens the command slightly, or signals respectful distance.
Hablen ustedes con calma, no hay prisa.
Take your time, there's no hurry.
When the pronoun appears, it typically follows the verb in imperative constructions: hablen ustedes, not ustedes hablen. The pre-verbal position would sound stilted or oddly emphatic.
How this differs from English
English doesn't grammatically distinguish singular and plural commands at all, let alone formal plural commands. "Speak slowly, please" works whether you're addressing one customer, a group of friends, or a courtroom. Spanish forces you to choose, and peninsular Spanish forces you to choose along two axes at once: number (one vs more than one) and register (informal vs formal). The four possibilities — habla (one friend), hablad (multiple friends), hable (one formal person), hablen (multiple formal people) — make explicit what English handles implicitly through tone and context.
The cognitive shift for English speakers is recognizing that picking hablen isn't just a verb choice; it's a social positioning. You're flagging that the group you're addressing is not your peer group — they are clients, audience members, or strangers deserving formal respect.
Common Mistakes
❌ Hablan más despacio, por favor.
Incorrect — hablan is indicative (they speak); the imperative is hablen.
✅ Hablen más despacio, por favor.
Please speak more slowly.
❌ Sientense aquí.
Incorrect — missing the obligatory accent on siéntense.
✅ Siéntense aquí.
Sit here.
❌ Hablen vosotros con el jefe.
Incorrect — hablen pairs with ustedes; vosotros takes hablad.
✅ Hablad vosotros con el jefe.
You guys talk to the boss.
❌ (To Spanish friends at dinner) Coman ya, que se enfría.
Sounds wrong in Spain — sounds like a tourist using Latin American Spanish.
✅ (To Spanish friends at dinner) Comed ya, que se enfría.
Eat already, it's getting cold.
❌ No siéntense en esa silla.
Incorrect — pronouns precede the verb in negative imperatives.
✅ No se sienten en esa silla.
Don't sit in that chair.
Key Takeaways
The ustedes imperative is the 3rd-plural present subjunctive: hablen, no hablen; coman, no coman. It's used identically for affirmative and negative, with pronouns attaching to the back of the affirmative form and sliding to the front of the negative. Grammatically the form is the same worldwide — but in Spain it carries formal weight, used for clients, audiences, and strangers in formal settings, while informal groups are addressed as vosotros with hablad. Mastering this distinction is what separates Spanish learned for Spain from Spanish learned anywhere else.
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- Imperativo de usted: hable, no hableA2 — The formal singular command in peninsular Spanish — the 3rd-singular present subjunctive for both affirmative and negative, used only in genuinely formal contexts in Spain.
- Imperativo afirmativo de vosotros: ¡hablad!A2 — The peninsular affirmative vosotros command — replace the -r of the infinitive with -d, drop the -d before reflexives, and never substitute the infinitive.
- Vosotros vs ustedes: el sistema españolA1 — In peninsular Spanish, vosotros is the everyday informal plural "you" — alive and used constantly — while ustedes is reserved for genuine formality. Learn when each is required, what verb endings each takes, and why the Latin American merger does not apply in Spain.
- Imperativo negativo de vosotros: no habléisA2 — The peninsular negative vosotros command — no + the 2nd-plural present subjunctive, with obligatory accents on -áis/-éis and pronouns placed before the verb.
- 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.