The Imperative Mood in German

The imperative mood (Imperativ) is used in German to give commands, make requests, offer advice, or express warnings. It exists only for the addressable forms of the second person: du (singular informal), ihr (plural informal), and Sie (formal singular/plural). Additionally, there is a first-person plural form (wir) used for suggestions.

The conjugation rules differ for each pronoun form. For du, the conjugation is formed by dropping the ending -st and the pronoun du from the present indicative (e.g., du machst becomes mach!), sometimes adding a decorative ending -e; strong verbs with a change from e to i or ie keep this change but drop the umlaut if they have one (e.g., lies!, fahr!). For ihr, use the simple second-person plural form without the pronoun (e.g., macht!). For Sie and wir, use the infinitive verb followed by the pronoun (e.g., machen Sie!, gehen wir!).

A common learner mistake is retaining the personal pronoun du or ihr when forming informal commands (e.g., saying du mach Hausaufgaben! or ihr geht nach Hause! instead of mach Hausaufgaben! and geht nach Hause!). Another error is failing to drop the umlaut of a in the du command of strong verbs (e.g., writing schläfst! or schläf! instead of the correct form schlaf!).