The Imperative mood

Usage

The imperative mood is used to ask for something, to give advice or to give an order. There are two forms of the imperative: the second person singular (ты) and the second person plural (вы): Иди! (Go! – to a friend, a child etc.) Идите! (Go! – polite form, or plural)

Formation

• The second person singular imperative form (the «ты» form): use the stem of the third person plural of the present tense for imperfective verbs, or the third person plural of the future tense for perfective verbs.

Last letter of the stem	Stress for the first person singular	Imperative
a vowel игра-ют	does not matter	+ й играй
a consonant пиш-ут	stress on the last syllable пишу	+ и пиши
a consonant став-ят	stress not on the last syllable ставлю	+ ь ставь
two consonants молч-ат	does not matter	+ и молчи

• The second person plural imperative form (“вы” form): the singular imperative + -те.

• Verbs which end in -ся:

Add -ся after a consonant: занимайся (second person singular), познакомься (second person singular) Add -сь after a vowel: занимайтесь (third person plural), познакомьтесь (third person plural), вернись (second person singular), учись (second person singular)

• The imperatives of verbs prefixed by вы-:

The imperative of the verb without prefix (учи) + prefix (выучи).

Some exceptions

Negative Imperatives

When used with the negative particle “не” the imperfective and perfective of imperatives convey different meanings:

не + imperfective imperative forbids, advices against an action etc.

не + perfective imperative gives an urgent warning