10.4: En la oficina del médico - imperativo de ustedes

Síntomas y enfermedades

dolor de cabeza	headache
dolor de estómago	stomacheache
dolor de garganta	sore throat
la fiebre	fever
las náuseas	nausea
la tos	cough
estar resfriad@ / acatarrad@ / constipad@ tener catarro / resfriado	to have a cold
resfriarse, acatarrarse, constiparse (reflexivos)	to catch a cold
tener la gripe	to have the flu
enfermarse (reflexivo)	to get sick
el COVID

Accidentes

torcerse el tobillo	to twist one´s ankle
quemarse	to burn oneself
romperse / quebrarse un hueso	to break a bone
caerse	to fall

  Tratamientos (treatments)

descansar
tomar medicina
comer bien
tomar mucho líquido mantenerse hidratado
poner una venda	to put a bandage on
poner una tirita	to put a band-aid on
tomarse la temperatura	to take one´s temperature

 

Diálogo \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Doctor: ¿Cómo está Usted?

Paciente: No me siento muy bien.

Doctor: ¿Cuáles son sus síntomas?

Paciente: Tengo dolor de cabeza, me duele la garganta y tengo un poco de náuseas.

Doctor: ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no se siente bien?

Paciente: Hace dos días. 

Doctor: Vamos a ver si tiene fiebre usted...   Sí. Tiene la temperatura un poco alta.

            Es mejor que usted descanse unos días. Es importante tomar mucha agua y otros líquidos. Es probable que sea un virus. Tome aspirinas o Tylenol 

            para el dolor de cabeza. No necesita antibióticos en este momento, pero si no se siente mejor en tres dias, vuelva a poner otra cita.

 

Thinking about the grammar - commands - Formal Commands

When we go to the doctor, they will most probably give us some recommendations. They may even use the imperative (command forms) to tell us exactly what to do. If we look at the last two lines spoken by the doctor in the above dialogue, we can see two verbs in the formal (usted conjugation) of the imperative. They are the verbs, ¨tomar¨ and ¨volver.¨ What do you notice about the conjugations. If you were to conjugate them in the usted conjugation of the present tense you already know, we would have ¨toma¨ and ¨vuelve.¨ The first conjugations you learned (last semester) are called the indicative. To tell people what to do, we need the imperative. Here are some verbs and how they look different in the indicative and the imperative of the usted conjugation.

infinitivo	indicativo	imperativo
verbos regulares		Notice that the vowel flips from ¨a¨ to ¨e¨ or from ¨e¨ to ¨a¨
hablar	habla	hable
comer	come	coma
vivir	vive	viva
verbos que se cambian de raíz (stem changing verbs)		To get the imperative, first get the ¨yo¨ conjugation of the indicative. Write everything down except for the ¨o¨ and then add the new ending.
volver	vuelve	vuelva
dormir	duerme	duerma
pedir	pide	pida
algunos verbos irregulares (some irregular verbs)
tener	tiene	tenga
Do you remember any other verbs that have the ¨go¨ in the ¨yo¨ conjugation of the indicative?	Here are some: salir, poner, venir, hacer
The following verbs are completely irregular and just need to be memorized.
ser	es	sea
ir	va	vaya

More thoughts about the grammar from the dialogue: When you tell someone it is better that they do something, you use a conjugation called the subjunctive. For the usted conjugations, it looks just like the imperative. The only difference is that it isn´t a direct command. You are telling them what you want them to do, or need them to do, but you are not directly telling them to do it.

Ejemplos:

Es mejor que usted descanse unos días. (It is better that you rest a few days.) We used the subjunctive of the verb ¨descansar.¨

We could have also said, ¨Es importante que tome mucha agua.¨ (It is important that you drink a lot of water.) Instead we said, ¨Es importante tomar mucha agua.¨ (It is important to drink a lot of water.) If we make it a general statement instead of specific to ¨you,¨ we don´t conjugate that verb. We just leave it in the infinitive. 

Query \(\PageIndex{1}\)

If you are giving commands to a group with which you use ¨ustedes,¨ you form the imperative in the same way as for ¨usted.¨ The only difference is that the conjugation will have an ¨n¨ on the end. Remember though, that if the infinitive has a ¨se¨ at the end, it means it is reflexive. You must place the ¨se¨ before the conjugated verb if it is a negative command. If it is a positive command, however, you must attach the ¨se¨ to the end of the command. Add a tilde (written accent mark) in order to keep the stress where it falls in the verb when the pronoun isn´t attached to the end. 

Query \(\PageIndex{1}\)