4. Imperative Mood

The imperative mood is used in forming commands, and can be recognized based on unusual word order, unusual verb forms, and / or an exclamation point at the end of the sentence. Note that German punctuation style is more reliable than English in requiring an exclamation point in imperative sentences. The verb will also appear at the beginning of the sentence, as do English imperatives. In the second person singular (du-form), an –e is added to the stem of regular verbs as follows, although this –e may be omitted:

Bring mir den Salz! [or:] Bringe mir den Salz!
Bring me the salt!

If the stem of the verb ends in a –d or a –t, the final –e is never omitted. Verbs featuring a vowel change from an e to an i in the stem retain this change in the imperative, and omit the final –e. Second person plural (ihr-form) imperatives retain their present-tense forms. The formal Sie-form also is identical with the present tense, but Sie-imperatives include this pronoun immediately after the verb. Separable-prefix verbs retain the separation of stem and prefix. Study the following examples:

The verb sein is irregular in the imperative form, as the following commands indicate:

The first-person plural (“we”) imperative in German is simpler than its English counterpart. It corresponds to English statements beginning with “Let’s . . .”: