Imperatives

To figure out how to form the imperative of a verb, start by looking at the я form and then subtract the last letter. The part that's left over we will call the stem.

If the stem ends in a vowel, then the imperative endings will be -й for ты commands and -йте for вы commands.

Exceptions: verbs that have stems in -давать, -знавать and -ставать actually keep the -ва- in the command forms.

If the stem ends in a consonant, the imperatives will be either -ь(те) or -и(те). If the я form is end-stressed, then the imperatives are -и(те).

If the я form is stressed on the stem (not the ending), and the stem ends in two or more consonants, then the ending is also -и(те).

If the я form is stressed on the stem (not the ending), and the stem ends in a single consonant which is immediately preceded by a vowel, then the ending is -ь(те):

Exception: if the stress is on the prefix вы- in a perfective verb, and the stem of the non-prefixed version of the verb is endstressed, the imperative retains the -и in the imperative.

If the я form has a consonant mutation that does not occur in the ты form, the imperative takes its stem from the ты form by removing the -ешь/-ёшь/-ишь endings.

If the я form ends in -ью, then the imperative stem replaces the ь with -ей.

There are a few verbs whose imperatives are simply irregular and have to be memorized:

Reflexive verbs follow the same rule in the imperative as they do in other forms; that is, you conjugate the verb first, then add -сь after vowels and -ся after non-vowels:

Rev. 9/9/2012