The Imperative Mood
When you need to give a direct command, offer strong advice, or handle an emergency, use the imperative mood.
To form the imperative for one person (the sinä or second-person singular form), the rule is simple across Verb Types 1, 2, and 3: take the minä (I) form of the verb in the present tense and drop the final -n.
If the verb has consonant gradation, the imperative uses the same "weak" stem as the minä form (for example, odottaa -> odotan -> odota!).
| Verb Type | Infinitive | minä form | Imperative (sinä) |
|---|
| Type 1 | katsoa (to look) | katson | katso! |
| Type 1 | odottaa (to wait) | odotan | odota! |
| Type 2 | juoda (to drink) | juon | juo! |
| Type 2 | jäädä (to stay) | jään | jää! |
| Type 3 | mennä (to go) | menen | mene! |
| Type 3 | kävellä (to walk) | kävelen | kävele! |
Let's see some imperatives in action to give advice and instructions:
Giving Directions and Warnings
Imperatives are especially useful for navigating or pointing out danger (vaara). You'll often use verbs like kääntyä (to turn), katsoa (to look), and varoa (to beware / watch out for).
When you tell someone to watch out for something specific with varoa, the thing they need to avoid takes the partitive case (e.g., koira -> koiraa, jää -> jäätä).
Handling Emergencies
If you are dealing with a more urgent situation, you might need to involve the police (poliisi) or an ambulance (ambulanssi).
