Imperatives

I has your teacher ever said, "Okay, class. Today we're going to study imperatives. Who can tell me what imperatives are?" >> Anyone know what this is, class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point, >> well, I can tell you this. Imperative is an uncomfortable word. When I picture the word in my mind, it looks like this guy or this girl, someone who doesn't look friendly, someone who you don't feel like saying hello to. Imperative. But as with anything in the grammar world, when you encounter ugly terminology, just remember to tell yourself, it's not the grammar terminology that matters. What matters is what does this thing help me do for my communication. Is it useful? Do I already do it in my own language? If yes, how is it produced or articulated the same way in English or is it different? So those are good questions to ask. So do we use imperatives in Spanish? Yeah. Do we use them for the same purpose in Spanish? Okay, fine. But what is that purpose? Well, we use the imperative to give orders or commands to someone directly to the person that we're specifically talking to or to give clear instructions like this for example. Eat it. Look at this. Shut up. Give me another beer. Scratch my back. Just like right up here. Right. No. No. Higher, higher. So, now that you've seen a few examples, is it produced or articulated the same way in English as in Spanish? No. But on the plus side, it's way easier in English than doing it the Spanish way. First of all, look at these again. They're a little different than most sentences in English. These ones do not have a subject in them. So you look at eat it for example and and you may think well who who eat it but since imperatives are orders basically that you give directly to the person that you're talking to that person is always going to be you. So with imperatives since the subject is always and automatically you it's not necessary to actually say you. If I say go to sleep, what I'm actually saying is you go to sleep. But I don't have to say you. I just say go to sleep. Bam. Now, the easy part about imperatives in English is that the verb is always going to be expressed in the basic form. Basic form is how you see the verb in the dictionary with nothing extra. >> Buff. Buff. Barf. Barf. Barf. Barf. This is true if I'm talking about the singular U or the plural U. Plural U. The heck is that? Well, yeah. It's like saying ores. in. This is so much easier for you learning English than it is for English speakers learning Spanish where the verb form changes depending on which you you're referring to. And it also changes even more if you're using the Spanish negative. It's crazy. But English doesn't change at all. Even an imperative in negative form uses the basic form of the verb. Take a look at this for instance just to see a clear comparison. Okay, we've got in basic form just like I would see it in the dictionary. Now just to use it in an imperative sentence, I can say for and then we get to the negatives. So for I can say that's a lot of ways to express it's very complicated. So let's look at how we express all of this in English. Ael means do basic form to express aslo we say do it. To say agono we say do it. Now what we say to make an imperative clearly negative is do not or contracted we would say don't. So to express we would say don't do it. And also to express we would say don't do it. Now tell me that's not easy. It's almost primitive. It's so easy. Now there's one other subject that includes you and that's we. It means you and I. So can we apply the imperative? Can we give an order to someone else and ourselves at the same time? Oh yeah, sure we can. We also do it in Spanish when we say vamos oramos or almos. And as you might be able to guess when we do this in English, we still just use the basic form of the verb. So what we do to denote we, we say you and I in the imperative is we use let. Let's go. Let's eat. Let's talk. Now, let's is a contraction. You can see with the apostrophe there for let us. But saying let us without the contraction is a very formal way of speaking. Like when you're at church and the padre or the pastor says, "Let us pray." But 99 times out of a hundred or maybe even more you will hear and you will say let's. Now because let's refers to we, you and I. It sounds a little bit less like an order and more like a suggestion. But either way, it's still imperative. And using let's negative. Easy. We say let's not. Hey, let's prepare a bowl of celery sticks. H, let's not have celery sticks. I've got some boobaloos. Well, I hope that helps clarify how we tell or order a person to do something or even tell ourselves because it's something that we do every day. And you're not going to want to avoid doing it in English just because you don't know how. Everything that you need to assure that you will not be confused about how to do it in English is right here in this video. So, let's leave it at that and I will see you next time. Have a good one.