Dime - Tell me?

Question

I'm listening to a song "Si tu no vuelves" by Shakira and Miguel Bose. A great song by the way. One of the lines is "Dime amor, amor, amor" which is translated as "Tell me love, love, love". I've got a problem withh "dime". If it does mean "tell me" why it's not "diceme" or "digasme". I'm completely lost here. Thanks for your answers.

Kris

Answer 1

you may be confused, because imperatives of the 2nd person are created, mostly, by using the 3rd person indicative (e.g. llama, calla). But there are some verbs that have some irregularities in the imperative. 'Decir' is an example. You say:

di - tell, say (2nd person)

diga - tell, say (3rd person) - actually there is no irregularity here, the 3rd person (usted) imperative is taken from 3rd person present subjuntive form. The difference from the infinitive, is because subjunctive is irregular.

So you better check the verbs conjugation, before memorizing it! If you don't want to make any errors.

Bye

Answer 2

Di is the 2nd person imperative of decir. Dice is the 3rd person indicative, & digas is the 2nd person present subjunctive. You need the imperative, so you use di.