Spanish-speaking countries with weird tú command conjugations
In some spanish speaking countries like Argentina, I have seen that when giving a tú command, they use a different form for irregular verbs, for example:
English: Tell him to do his homework! Standard Translation: ¡Dile que haga su tarea! Their Translation: ¡Decile que haga su tarea!
This is a very strange difference. So is this the generally accepted way of conjugating the tú commands in certain countries, or is this simply random people using nonstandard Spanish grammar?
Gracias ya por sus repuestas.
3 Answers
Hola! The other day a question came up about the use of 'vos', if you don't know what this is you should read this post. In a few words, vos is the pronoun we use instead of tú here in Argentina. It is also used in other places. So these are not tú commands! The vos form has its own way of conjugating verbs.
Your standard translation is wrong. It should be: Dile que haga la tarea.
In Argentina we don't say dicele, but we say: Decile que haga la tarea.
We also don't say dime (tell me) but we say decime. But don't worry, if you ever come to Argentina or to any other place where vos is used, they will understand you anyway.
The commands for informal you in Argentina are actually much easier than in other Spanish dialects. Just take off the "r" at the end of the infinitive, add an accent on the vowel before the r & that's it. You don't have to even think about irregular verbs. Examples:
Tomar: Tomá
Poner: Poné
Venir: Venì
Decir: Decí
Easy, plus it sounds cool
Nice answer malbecblend
