How to Give Commands and Make Requests in Marathi

A Marathi speaker drops something and you want to say "wait, I'll get it." You're at a crowded Dadar station and you want to tell a group to please stand back. Your close friend is spiraling about a work situation and you want to say "don't worry." Three different situations — three different grammatical forms. Marathi's imperative system is not complicated, but it is stratified: the word you choose tells the listener exactly how you see them in relation to yourself.

The Informal Command: तू Form (Bare Verb Root)

When you're addressing someone you'd call तू (tu) — a close friend, a younger sibling, a child — the Marathi imperative is simply the verb root with no ending added at all.

Take the verb करणे (karaṇe, to do). Its root is कर (kar). The informal command is:

कर! (kar!) — "Do it!"

The verb root stands alone. No suffix, no extra word. Contrast this with Hindi, where you'd say करो (karo) — Marathi drops even that -ओ ending. The starkness of the bare root is what gives Marathi informal commands their direct, sometimes clipped quality.

More examples:

Verb (infinitive)	Root	Informal command	Romanization	English
येणे (yeṇe, to come)	ये	ये	ye	Come!
जाणे (jāṇe, to go)	जा	जा	jā	Go!
थांबणे (thāmbaṇe, to stop/wait)	थांब	थांब	thāmb	Wait! / Stop!
बसणे (basaṇe, to sit)	बस	बस	bas	Sit down!
पाहणे (pāhaṇe, to look/see)	पाह	पाह	pāh	Look!
ऐकणे (aikaṇe, to listen)	ऐक	ऐक	aik	Listen!
सांगणे (sāṅgaṇe, to tell/say)	सांग	सांग	sāṅg	Tell me!

थांब (thāmb) is one you'll use more than you think — at traffic, in a market, telling a rickshaw driver to hold on a moment before you get out. The bare root form has an immediacy that matches those moments.

One common point of confusion: ये (ye, come!) looks exactly like the verb ये in other contexts. Marathi relies on sentence position and context rather than special imperative markers. The verb at the end of a short utterance, delivered with falling intonation, reads as a command. That's the whole signal.

The Polite Command: तुम्ही Form (-आ Ending)

When you're speaking to someone you'd address with तुम्ही (tumhī) — an elder, a stranger, a colleague you're not on first-name terms with, or any group of people — the imperative takes an -आ (-ā) ending added to the verb root.

करा (karā) — "Please do it." / "Do it." (polite)

The same root कर, but now with -आ. This form simultaneously marks politeness and plurality — the same ending serves as polite singular and plural command, just as तुम्ही itself does double duty.

Verb root	Polite command	Romanization	English
ये (come)	या	yā	Come (please)
जा (go)	जा	jā	Go (please)
थांब (stop)	थांबा	thāmbā	Please wait / Stop
बस (sit)	बसा	basā	Please sit down
पाह (look)	पाहा	pāhā	Please look
सांग (tell)	सांगा	sāṅgā	Please tell me
घे (take)	घ्या	ghyā	Please take (irregular)

Wait — जा stays जा? Yes. When the root itself ends in -आ, the polite form looks identical to the informal. Context and tone handle the distinction. घ्या (ghyā) is worth memorizing: it's the polite command form of घेणे (gheṇe, to take), and it's the word you'll hear in every Maharashtrian home when someone offers you something — "चहा घ्या" (cahā ghyā, "have tea") is genuinely one of the most common phrases in Maharashtrian hospitality.

The polite command sounds nothing like an order in practice. When your partner's mother says बसा (basā) the moment you walk in the door, she means "make yourself comfortable," not "I'm commanding you to be seated." Intonation carries warmth; the -आ ending signals respect.

Understanding this connects directly to the broader pronoun system. If you're unsure whether to use the तू or तुम्ही register in any given situation, the Marathi pronouns guide for तू, तुम्ही, and आपण has the full social framework — including the specific signals that tell you when it's safe to shift down to the informal register.

Making It Softer: कृपया and the Future as a Request

Sometimes neither command form is what you want. You're asking a favor, not issuing an order. You want to make a request that sounds genuinely optional.

Two moves work here.

First: Add कृपया (kṛpayā, please) before the polite command form. It shifts the register from "polite instruction" to "genuine request."

कृपया थांबा. (Kṛpayā thāmbā.) — "Please wait."
कृपया बसा. (Kṛpayā basā.) — "Please have a seat."
कृपया हळू बोला. (Kṛpayā haḷū bolā.) — "Please speak slowly."

The third example is practical for learners in the real world — if you're in a conversation that's moving too fast, this phrase buys you time.

Second: Use the future tense as a soft suggestion. This works the way "would you mind..." works in English — framing the request as something the person might choose to do rather than something you're telling them to do.

तुम्ही जाल का? (Tumhī jāl kā?) — "Would you go?" / "Could you go?"
तुम्ही सांगाल का? (Tumhī sāṅgāl kā?) — "Would you tell me?" / "Could you tell me?"

Adding का (kā, the question particle) after the future tense form turns a statement into a deferential request. This is the construction to use when the stakes of the interaction are high — asking your boss to review something, requesting a favor from a relative you've just met, or checking at a shop whether they can special-order something.

Negative Commands: नको and नका

Telling someone not to do something uses a different structure entirely. The verb takes a subjunctive/infinitive form — the form ending in -ऊ (-ū) — and the negative word follows.

For informal commands (to someone you'd call तू): the negative word is नको (nako).

जाऊ नको. (Jāū nako.) — "Don't go." (to a friend)
रडू नको. (Raḍū nako.) — "Don't cry."
घाई करू नको. (Ghāī karū nako.) — "Don't rush."

For polite commands (तुम्ही, or addressing a group): the negative word is नका (nakā).

जाऊ नका. (Jāū nakā.) — "Don't go." (polite, or to a group)
काळजी करू नका. (Kāḷajī karū nakā.) — "Don't worry."
उशीर करू नका. (Uśīr karū nakā.) — "Don't be late."
इथे बसू नका. (Ithe basū nakā.) — "Don't sit here."

The pattern is clean: [verb root + ऊ] + [नको or नका]. The verb always takes the -ऊ form in negative commands — not the bare root used in positive informal commands. You can't say "जा नको" to mean "don't go"; the correct structure is "जाऊ नको."

नका appears constantly on public signs, in announcements, from elders addressing a group. The full negation guide for नाही, नको, and नका covers all three negators in detail, including the important distinction between नको as a command ("don't") versus नको as a refusal ("I don't want").

10 Practical Phrases Across Registers

Here's the complete set — the same ten commands rendered in both the informal and polite forms, so you can see the system working together:

Situation	Informal (तू)	Polite (तुम्ही)	Romanization	English
Come here	इकडे ये	इकडे या	ikde ye / yā	Come here
Sit down	बस	बसा	bas / basā	Sit down
Wait a moment	थांब	थांबा	thāmb / thāmbā	Wait / Hold on
Please speak slowly	हळू बोल	हळू बोला	haḷū bol / bolā	Speak slowly
Don't worry	काळजी करू नको	काळजी करू नका	kāḷajī karū nako / nakā	Don't worry
Tell me	सांग	सांगा	sāṅg / sāṅgā	Tell me
Look at this	हे पाह	हे पाहा	he pāh / pāhā	Look at this
Have tea	(informal: अरे, चहा घे)	चहा घ्या	cahā ghyā	Have tea / Take tea
Don't come	येऊ नको	येऊ नका	yeū nako / nakā	Don't come
Go now	आता जा	आता जा	ātā jā / jā	Go now

The जा / जा identity in the last row is worth noting again. The informal and polite imperative of जाणे look identical. This is one of only a handful of verbs where this happens — most show a clear -आ difference in the polite form.

A Note on Tone

Written commands look stark on a page, but Maharashtrian speech is generous with softening. A polite command like बसा delivered with a warm smile and the right intonation is the Marathi equivalent of an English "please, make yourself at home." The grammatical form handles formality; the speaker's voice handles warmth.

The imperative system becomes second nature when you encounter it in real conversation — hearing how your Marathi-speaking friends soften or sharpen commands depending on the situation teaches you far more than any paradigm table. Matching the register of the person you're speaking with is the practical goal. Getting the tense system right first, so you know when you're giving a command versus stating a fact, is what makes that matching possible. The introduction to Marathi verb tenses covers the full tense system in the same register-aware style if you want to anchor the imperative in the wider picture.

The Learn Marathi app by Brightwood Apps includes all of these command forms with native-speaker audio across both registers — so you can hear what "थांबा" sounds like as a polite request and what "थांब" sounds like as a close-friend instruction before you need to use either one yourself.