negative tú commands

P. 356Realidades 2

To form negative tú commands with regular verbs, we drop the o of the present-tense yo form and add the following endings:

HABLARhablo habl es

No hables ahora

COMERcomo com as

No comas eso.

ABRIRabro abr as

No abras esa puerta.

Notice that -ar verbs take the ending -es and that -er verbs take the ending -as.

In stem-changing verbs the stem change remains.

No enciendas el horno.No añadas demasiado sal.

No pongas los camarones en la sartén todavía.

Verbs ending in -car, -gar, and -zar have the following spelling changes in negative tú commands in order to maintain the original sound.

TOCAR

toco toqu es

No toques el piano.

-car (c…qu)

LLEGAR

llego llegu es

No llegues tarde.

-gar (g…gu)

CRUZAR

cruzo cruc es

No cruces aquí.

-zar (z…c)

Some verbs, such as ir, ser, dar, and estar have irregular negative tú command forms.

DarEstarIrSer

No desNo estésNo vayasNo seas

Remember that pronouns are attached to affirmative commands.

If the pronoun is added to a command form that has two or more syllables, write an accent mark on the syllable stressed in the present tense.

¿Pico las cebollas?Sí, pícalas.

With negative commands, pronouns always go right before the verb.

¿Pico los tomates también?

No, no los piques.