Affirmative usted(es) and tú commands

Question

For affirmative tú commands, if you say “cut it”, then “it”, “lo”, would have to go on the end of “cut”, “corta”, which would then look like, “córtalo”. Is this the same for affirmative usted(es) commands? Would it look like “córtalo” or “lo corta”?

Answer 1

The imperative mood (commands) works the same: the object pronoun (for example lo, as you say) goes after the verb and joined to it. But the verb conjugation is not the same. You already know the form for tú. I will exemplify it with a direct object pronoun lo and three regular verbs, one for each verb ending:

1. cortar: córtalo
2. meter: mételo
3. abrir: ábrelo

For usted and ustedes you must already know that the verb takes third-person endings. For the imperative mood with these, you use verb conjugations that correspond to the subjunctive mood. They are as follows:

1. cortar: córtelo (usted), córtenlo (ustedes)
2. meter: métalo (usted), métanlo (ustedes)
3. abrir: ábralo (usted), ábranlo (ustedes)

As you see, the endings for the usted-imperative have an -e where the endings for tú have an -a and viceversa. The endings for the ustedes-imperative have this as well, and they add an -n.