German has three imperatives, because it has three words for “you”. Which one you use is not a grammar decision but a social one — you already made it when you chose du or Sie for this person. The forms themselves are short and there are only a few irregularities.
The three forms
| How to build it | gehen | nehmen | machen | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| du | verb stem, no ending, no pronoun | Geh! | Nimm! | Mach! |
| ihr | the ordinary ihr form, pronoun dropped | Geht! | Nehmt! | Macht! |
| Sie | infinitive + Sie, pronoun kept | Gehen Sie! | Nehmen Sie! | Machen Sie! |
Two things to hold on to. The du and ihr forms drop the pronoun entirely — “Geh geradeaus”, never “Du geh geradeaus”. The Sie form does the opposite and must keep it, because without Sie the sentence is just an infinitive and stops being an instruction.
The vowel changes, and the one that does not happen
Strong verbs that change e to i or ie in the present tense keep that change in the du-imperative. Verbs that change a to ä do not — the umlaut disappears. This pair is the main thing to learn here, and getting it backwards is the commonest imperative error.
| Verb | du form (present) | du-imperative |
|---|---|---|
| nehmen | du nimmst | Nimm! |
| geben | du gibst | Gib! |
| lesen | du liest | Lies! |
| sprechen | du sprichst | Sprich! |
| fahren | du fährst | Fahr! (no umlaut) |
| laufen | du läufst | Lauf! (no umlaut) |
A few verbs add an -e in the du form because the stem would otherwise be unpronounceable — those ending in -d, -t or -ig: Arbeite! Antworte! Entschuldige! With other verbs an added -e (Gehe! Sage!) is not wrong but sounds old-fashioned, and nobody says it.
sein and haben
Sei bitte ruhig! / Seid ruhig! / Seien Sie ruhig!
Be quiet, please.
sein is irregular in all three — worth memorising as a block
Hab keine Angst! / Habt keine Angst! / Haben Sie keine Angst!
Don't be afraid.
haben drops the -e in the du form
Steig am Marktplatz aus!
Get off at Marktplatz.
separable verb — the prefix still goes to the very end
Softening it
A bare imperative can sound blunt. German softens it with small words — bitte, doch, mal, or a combination — far more than English does, and leaving them out is a common reason a beginner's German sounds abrupt when they did not mean to be.
Spül bitte das Geschirr.
Do the washing-up, please.
bitte does the most work
Frag doch Frau Yildiz im Erdgeschoss.
Why don't you ask Ms Yildiz on the ground floor.
doch turns an order into a suggestion
Komm mal her.
Come here a moment.
mal makes it small and casual
Common mistakes
✗Du geh geradeaus!
✓Geh geradeaus!
The du and ihr imperatives have no pronoun at all. Keeping it turns the command into a strange statement.
✗Gehen geradeaus!
✓Gehen Sie geradeaus!
The Sie form is the only one that needs its pronoun. Without it you have said the bare infinitive.
✗Nehm die Linie 4!
✓Nimm die Linie 4!
nehmen changes e to i, and the imperative keeps that change — the same vowel you use in “du nimmst”.
✗Fähr langsam!
✓Fahr langsam!
The a-to-ä change does NOT survive into the imperative, even though you say “du fährst”. This is the mirror of the nehmen rule.
✗Steig aus am Marktplatz!
✓Steig am Marktplatz aus!
A separable prefix goes to the end of the sentence in the imperative just as it does everywhere else.
✗Bist ruhig!
✓Sei ruhig!
sein does not use its present-tense form here. Sei, seid and seien Sie are irregular and simply have to be learned.
Where you will need this most at A1 and A2: giving directions, writing a note for a flatmate, and explaining a recipe. All three are built almost entirely out of du-imperatives — “Nimm die Linie 4”, “Geh geradeaus”, “Steig am Marktplatz aus” — so the form is worth getting automatic early.