Dutch

A peculiar feature of Dutch is that it can form an imperative mood in the pluperfect tense. Its use is fairly common:^[7]

• Had gebeld! (You should have called!, If only you had called)
• Was gekomen! (You should have come!, If only you had come)

German

German verbs have a singular and a plural imperative. The singular imperative is equivalent to the bare stem or the bare stem + -e. (In most verbs, both ways are correct.) The plural imperative is the same as the second-person plural of the present tense.

• Sing! or: Singe! – said to one person: "Sing!"
• Singt! – said to a group of persons: "Sing!"

In order to emphasize their addressee, German imperatives can be followed by the nominative personal pronouns du ("thou; you [sg.]") or ihr ("you [pl.]"), respectively. For example: "Geh weg! "– "Geh du doch weg!" ("Go away!" – "Why, you go away!").

German has T/V distinction, which means that the pronouns du and ihr are used chiefly towards persons with whom one is privately acquainted, which holds true for the corresponding imperatives. (For details see German grammar.) Otherwise, the social-distance pronoun Sie (you) is used for both singular and plural. Since there exists no actual imperative corresponding to Sie, the form is paraphrased with the third-person plural of the present subjunctive followed by the pronoun:

• Singen Sie! – said to one or more persons: "Sing!"
• Seien Sie still! – said to one or more persons: "Be quiet!"

Occasionally, the infinitive (Infinitiv or Infinitiv als Imperativ) may be used as a mild or polite imperative, in order to avoid directly addressing the person or to simplify the sentence's construction. Although sometimes used in spoken language, this form is most commonly used in general instructions and recipes. Examples include:

• Nicht rauchen! – "No smoking!"
• Pasta im Salzwasser sehr bissfest kochen und abtropfen lassen. - "Cook the pasta al dente and drain."
• Bitte nicht berühren! - "Please do not touch!"

Like English, German features many constructions that express commands, wishes, etc. They are thus semantically related to imperatives without being imperatives grammatically:

• Lasst uns singen! (Let's sing!)
• Mögest du singen! (You may sing!)
• Du sollst singen! (You should sing!)

French

Examples of regular imperatives in French are mange (2nd pers. singular), mangez (2nd pers. plural) and mangeons (1st person plural, "let's eat"), from manger (to eat) – these are similar or identical to the corresponding present indicative forms, although there are some irregular imperatives that resemble the present subjunctives, such as sois, soyez and soyons, from être (to be). A third person imperative can be formed using a subjunctive clause with the conjunction que, as in qu'ils mangent de la brioche (let them eat cake).

French uses different word order for affirmative and negative imperative sentences:

• Donne-le-leur. (Give it to them.)
• Ne le leur donne pas. (Don't give it to them.)

The negative imperative (prohibitive) has the same word order as the indicative. See French personal pronouns § Clitic order for detail. Like in English, imperative sentences often end with an exclamation mark, e.g. to emphasize an order.

In French there is a very distinctive imperative which is the imperative mood of preterite tense also called (past imperative or imperative of future perfect), expresses a given order with previous future value which must be executed or fulfilled in a future not immediate, as if it were an action to come, but earlier in relation to another that will also happen in the future. However, this type of imperative is peculiar to French which has only one purpose: to order that something be done before the date or time, therefore, this will always be accompanied by a circumstantial complement of time. However, this imperative is formed with the auxiliary verb of the avoir compound tenses and with the auxiliary verb être that is also used to form the tenses composed of the pronominal verbs and some of the intransitive verbs, this means that the structure of the verb imperative in its entirety is composed. Examples:

• Soyez levés demain avant huit heures. (Get up tomorrow before eight o'clock.) [With the auxiliary être]
• Ayez fini le travail avant qu'il (ne) fasse nuit. (Finish the work before it gets dark.) [With the auxiliary avoir and optional expletive ne]
• Aie écrit le livre demain. (Write the book tomorrow.) [With the auxiliary avoir]
• Soyez partis à midi. (Leave at noon.) [With the auxiliary être]
• Ayons fini les devoirs à 6 h. (Let us complete homework at 6 o'clock.) [With the auxiliary avoir]

In English there is no equivalent grammatical structure to form this tense of the imperative mood; it is translated in imperative mood of present with previous value.

Spanish

In Spanish, imperatives for the familiar singular second person (tú) are usually identical to indicative forms for the singular third person. However, there are irregular verbs for which unique imperative forms for tú exist. vos (alternative to tú) usually takes the same forms as tú (usually with slightly different emphasis) but unique forms exist for it as well. vosotros (plural familiar second person) also takes unique forms for the imperative.

If an imperative takes a pronoun as an object, it is appended to the verb; for example, Dime (Tell me). Pronouns can be stacked like they can in indicative clauses:

• Me lo dices. (You tell me it or You tell it to me, can also mean You tell me as lo usually is not translated)
• Dímelo. (Tell me it, Tell it to me, Tell me)

Imperatives can be formed for usted (singular formal second person), ustedes (plural second person), and nosotros (plural first person) from the respective present subjunctive form. Negative imperatives for these pronouns (as well as tú, vos, and vosotros) are also formed this way, but are negated by no (e.g. No cantes, "Don't sing").

Portuguese

In Portuguese, affirmative imperatives for singular and plural second person (tu / vós) derive from their respective present indicative conjugations, after having their final -s dropped.^{[pt 1]} On the other hand, their negative imperatives are formed by their respective subjunctive forms, as well as both affirmative and negative imperatives for treatment pronouns (você(s)) and plural first person (nós).

If a verb takes a pronoun, it should be appended to the verb:

• Diz(e)-me. (Tell me) Portugal/Brazil
• Me diz. (Tell me) Brazil (spoken)
• Diz(e)-mo. (Tell me it, Tell it to me)

Welsh

In spoken Welsh most verbs can form two imperatives, both in the second person: one for singular and one for plural/polite singular. The singular imperative is formed by adding –a to the verbal-stem (gwel- → gwela 'see!') while the plural/polite form takes –wch: gwelwch 'see!'. In informal writing, the plural/polite form is often used to translate 'please' as in talwch yma '(please) pay here' (talwch is the plural/polite imperative form of talu 'to pay').

In literary Welsh there are imperatives for all persons and numbers, except for the first-person singular. These must often be translated using phrases in English: gwelwn 'let us see'; gwelent 'let them see'; wele 'let him/her/it see'; gweler 'let it be seen, it is to be seen'. In the literary language the second person singular suffix –a is often not used: gwela (spoken), but gwêl (literary); tala (spoken), but tâl (literary).

The five irregular Welsh verbs (bod, mynd, dod, cael and gwneud) also have irregular imperative forms which also differ between the spoken and literary languages. Bod 'to be' is the most irregular of the Welsh verbs and has its imperatives in bydd(a), byddwch in the spoken language, but in the literary language the same second person imperatives, plus: bydded, boed, bid (3rd person singular); byddent (third person plural); byddwn (first person plural); bydder (impersonal, 'it is to be'). The verb mynd 'to go' has the imperative forms dos (second person singular) and ewch (second person plural). The verb dod 'to come' has the most irregular set of imperatives owing to dialectal differences and literary standards; in the spoken language the second-person singular forms are tyrd, dere and the plural forms are dewch, dowch. The literary register has dere, tyrd, tyred for the singular and deuwch, dewch, dowch for the plural, as well as deued, doed, deled (third-person singular); deuent, doent, delent (third-person plural); deuwn, down (first-person plural); and deuer, doer, deler (impersonal). Gwneud 'to do, to make' has the same second-person imperatives in both registers of the language: gwna (singular) and gwnewch (plural). The verb cael 'to get' has no imperative forms in the spoken language, only in the literary which are ca and cewch in the second-person.

Irish

Irish has imperative forms in all three persons and both numbers, although the first person singular is most commonly found in the negative (e.g. ná cloisim sin arís "let me not hear that again").

Hindi-Urdu

In Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) the imperatives are conjugated by adding suffixes to the root verb. The negative and positive imperatives are not constructed differently in Hindustani. There are three negations that be used to form negative imperatives.^[8] They are:

• Imperative negation - mat मत مت (used with verbs in imperative mood)
• Indicative negation - nahī̃ नहीं نہیں (used with verbs in indicative and presumptive mood)
• Subjunctive negation - nā ना نا (used with verbs in subjunctive and contrafactual mood)

Often to soften down the tone of the imperatives, the subjunctive and indicative negation are used to form negative imperatives. Imperatives can also be formed using subjunctives to give indirect commands to the third person and to formal second person.^[9] A peculiar feature of Hindi-Urdu is that it has imperatives in two tenses; present and the future tense.^[10] The present tense imperative gives command in the present and future imperative gives command for the future. Hindi-Urdu explicitly marks grammatical aspects and any verb can be put into the simple, habitual, perfective, and progressive aspects. Each aspect in turn can be conjugated into five different grammatical moods, imperative mood being one of them. In the table below, the verb करना karnā کرنا (to do) is conjugated into the imperative mood for all the four aspectual forms.

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit, लोट् लकार (lōṭ lakāra) is used with the verb to form the imperative mood. To form the negative, न (na) or मा (mā) (when the verb is in passive or active voice respectively) is placed before the verb in the imperative mood.

Bengali

Standard modern Bengali uses the negative postposition /nā/ after a future imperative formed using the -iyo fusional suffix (in addition, umlaut vowel changes in the verb root might take place).

Greek

Ancient Greek has imperative forms for present, aorist, and perfect tenses for the active, middle, and passive voices. Within these tenses, forms exist for second and third persons, for singular, dual, and plural subjects. Subjunctive forms with μή are used for negative imperatives in the aorist.

Present Active Imperative: 2nd sg. λεῖπε, 3rd sg. λειπέτω, 2nd pl. λείπετε, 3rd pl. λειπόντων.

In ancient Greek, the general order (with the idea of duration or repetition) is expressed using the present imperative and the punctual order (without the idea of duration or repetition) using the aorist imperative.

Russian

The commanding form in Russian language is formed from the base of the present tense.^[11] The most common form of the second person singular or plural. The form of the second person singular in the imperative mood is formed as follows:

• A verb with a present stem ending in – j – the form of the second person singular of the imperative mood is equal to the base: читаj-у — читай, убираj-у — убирай, открываj-у — открывай, поj-у — пой.

Finnish

In Finnish, there are two ways of forming a first-person plural imperative. A standard version exists, but it is typically replaced colloquially by the impersonal tense. For example, from mennä (to go), the imperative "let's go" can be expressed by menkäämme (standard form) or mennään (colloquial).

Forms also exist for second (sing. mene, plur. menkää) and third (sing. menköön, plur. menkööt) person. Only first person singular does not have an imperative.

Hebrew

In classical Hebrew, there is a form for positive imperative. It exists for singular and plural, masculine and feminine second-person. The imperative conjugations look like shortages of the future ones. However, in modern Hebrew, the future tense is often used in its place in colloquial speech, and the proper imperative form is considered formal or of higher register.

The negative imperative in those languages is more complicated. In modern Hebrew, for instance, it contains a synonym of the word "no", that is used only in negative imperative (אַל), and is followed by the future tense.

Japanese

Japanese uses separate verb forms as shown below. For the verb kaku (write):

See also the suffixes 〜なさい (–nasai) and 〜下さい (–kudasai).

Korean

Korean has six levels of honorific, all of which have their own imperative endings. Auxiliary verbs 않다 anta and 말다 malda are used for negative indicative and prohibitive, respectively. For the verb gada (go'):

Mandarin

Standard Chinese uses different words of negation for the indicative and the prohibitive moods. For the verb 做 zuò (do):

Turkish

For the imperative form, the second-person singular, Turkish uses the bare verb stem without the infinitive ending -mek/-mak. Other imperative forms use various suffixes. The second-person plural, which can also be used to express formality (See T–V distinction), uses the suffixes -in/-ın/-ün/-un. The second person double-plural, reserved for super formal contexts (usually public notifications), uses the suffixes -iniz/-ınız/-ünüz/-unuz. Third-person singular uses -sin/-sın/-sün/-sun. Third-person plural uses -sinler/-sınlar/-sünler/-sunlar (There is no third person double-plural in Turkish). First-person pronouns do not have imperative forms. All Turkish imperative suffixes change depending on the verb stem according to the rules of vowel harmony. For the verb içmek (to drink, also to smoke a cigarette or similar):

Turkish also has a separate optative mood. Conjugations of the optative mood for the first-person pronouns (singular içeyim, (double-)plural içelim) are sometimes incorrectly said to be first-person imperatives. Conjugations of the optative mood for second and third-person pronouns exist (second-person singular içesin, second-person (double-)plural içesiniz, third-person singular içe, third-person plural içeler), but are rarely used in practice.

Negative imperative forms are made in the same way, but using a negated verb as the base. For example, the second person singular imperative of içmemek (not to drink) is içme (don't drink). Other Turkic languages construct imperative forms similarly to Turkish.