Lesson 9: Giving Commands

In this lesson, you will learn the two most common ways of giving commands in Japanese and two of the less common ones.

The first command form is an informal command that has about the same formality level as the plain form of verbs. To conjugate a verb into this form, you just use the て-form of the verb. The other common command form is about as formal as the ます-form of verbs. To conjugate a verb into this form, you first take the て-form of the verb then add 下さい (ください Normally written in only kana) to the end of the verb i.e. いく→いって→いってください, ころす→ころして→ころしてください, and つかう→つかって→つかってください.

This next command form is mainly used to give commands to people of a lower social status than the person giving the command. To conjugate a verb into this form, you first take the ます-stem of the verb then add なさい to the end of the verb i.e. いき→いきなさい, ころし→ころしなさい, and つかい→つかいなさい.

This command form is a very informal form that is often used to give very blunt commands. This form is a bit more complicated than the previous three command forms since it conjugates differently depending on which Verb Group the verb is. For Group 1 verbs, you change the final kana from ending in an う sound to ending in a え sound i.e. つかう→つかえ, ころす→ころせ, and いく→いけ. For Group 2 verbs, you replace the ending る with ろ i.e. たすける→たすけろ, and たべる→たべろ. For する, you replace it with either しろ or less commonly せよ i.e. する→しろ, or する→せよ, for 来る（くる）, you replace it with 来い(こい) i.e. 来る（くる）→来い（こい）.

That's the end of this lesson. You now know all of the common and a few of the less common ways of giving commands in Japanese. After I cover the negative form of verbs, I teach you how to do negative commands in Japanese.