Los Mandatos
I've looked at a lot of verbs on the SpanishDict translator, and all of the one's I've seen have Imperative forms, even verbs that shouldn't.
What I mean by shouldn't is a verb like "Poder". It's imperative is "puede" but I cannot think of a sentence that would require me to say "¡Be able to X!" to a person. Another verb is "Gustar". How would you even go about using it in a command?
I am interested in where these forms come from. Being a dictionary, these forms must have come from somewhere. Do the imperative forms of these verbs just click in the minds of native speakers, or are they actually used in conversation?
2 Answers
Poder is the most useful of all ways of asking people to do something for you. It really is.
Long before I knew a thing about subjunctives and imperatives I was able to say: ¿Puede traerlo? ¿ Puede ayudarme? ¿ Puede ensillar el caballo? ¿No tengo dinero para pagar, puede esperar hasta mañana ? The last worked so well they lent me a torch, so that I could survive the night and indeed return with torch and money.
Under stress I will still fall back on this most useful form of instructing people without causing offence. .
"Poder" rings no bells with me as regards an imperative. Who says it has one? Can it simply be that it belongs to a standard form which normally includes an imperative but does not mandate the use or existence of one.
As for "gustar", how about "Me dices que no te gusta la comida. La comida es un don del cielo, pues gustalo no más".
I think it is not impossible that 50+ years ago I may have said something like this to my kids.
