What is the formal imperative in Italian?
We use the formal imperative when we’re giving orders in the following three contexts:
- To someone older
- To someone we don’t know very well
- To someone in a formal context
Let’s review the regular endings for the formal imperative:
- Verbs in –are: -i
- Verbs in –ere: -a
- Verbs in –ire: -a or -isca
And now, let’s review the endings of some irregular verbs for the formal imperative:
- Avere (to have): abbia
- Andare (to go): vada
- Dare (to give): dia
- Dire (to say): dica
- Essere (to be): sia
- Fare(to do): faccia
- Venire (to come): venga
If you need to review the imperative in more detail, have a look at our lesson about giving orders and instructions.
In today’s lesson, we’re going to focus on the negative formal imperative.
Let’s compare these two examples:
- Informal
Non chiamare troppo tardi.
Don’t call too late.
- Formal
Non chiami troppo tardi.
Don’t call too late.
How to use the negative formal imperative?
As you probably noticed in the above example, making the formal imperative negative is very easy: We just add the negative word non before the conjugated formal imperative.
Let’s have a look at some examples:
Non dica niente.
Don’t say anything.
Non esageri!
Don’t exaggerate!
Non abbia paura!
Don’t be scared.
Practice with Quizlet
Here's a set of flashcards and quizzes to practice this grammar topic.How to use the negative formal imperative with pronouns?
Have a look at the following sentence:
Lo chiami adesso.
Call him now.
Ci dica tutto.
Tell us everything.
Me li porti a casa.
Bring them to me at my house.
Lo, ci, me and li are all pronouns. They refer to either objects or people.
If we want to make those sentences negative, again, we can just add non right before the pronoun, which goes before the formal imperative.
Non lo chiami adesso.
Don’t call him now.
Non ci dica tutto.
Don’t tell us everything.
Non me li porti a casa.
Don’t bring them to me at my house.
Here’s the structure: Non + pronoun + conjugated formal imperative.
