The imperative verb forms are used to give orders or advice, to urge strongly, and to exhort. It is a simple tense—in the sense that it isn’t compound—and has only one form, the present. Furthermore, you can address your command only to an informal form of "you": tu or voi, depending on whether you are talking to one or more people.

When conjugating a first-conjugation Italian verb, the familiar singular (tu) command is the same as the third-person singular (Lei) form of the present indicative, and the plural voi command is the same as the voi form of the present indicative (see the table below).