Formsei (du) / seid (ihr) / seien Sie
Meaning and usage
The verb sein has its own command forms. For one person you say sei, for several people seid, and for polite situations seien Sie. These forms are irregular, so you learn them as a small set. Sei and seien Sie are not the same as the present tense forms bist and sind. Seid looks like the present tense ihr seid, but the pronoun ihr is dropped in the command.
Use these forms to tell someone to be a certain way or to be somewhere: Sei vorsichtig!, Seid ruhig!, Seien Sie pünktlich!. The one mistake to avoid is using the present tense form for du or Sie: say sei and seien Sie, not bist or sind.
Examples 6
Sei nicht zu hart zu dir selbst.
Don't be too hard on yourself.
Sei schnell oder du verpasst den Zug.
Be quick, or you will miss the train.
Seid nicht so hart zu euch.
Don't be so hard on yourselves.
Seid ruhig und hört mir zu.
Be quiet and listen to me.
Seien Sie sich da nicht so sicher!
Don't be so sure.
Seien Sie sich da nicht zu sicher!
Don't be too sure.
Test yourself
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1 Sprachbausteine
bitte leise, Kinder!
Show answer
Correct answer: Seid
The command is addressed to several children, so you use seid. The pronoun ihr is dropped.
- Sind is the present tense form for wir or sie, not a command form.
- Sei is the command for one person, but here several children are addressed.
- Seien Sie is the polite command for one or more adults, not for children you address with ihr.
In this topic: Imperative
- Komm! Mach das! du command: verb stem, no du, no -st
- Kommt! Macht das! Command to a group you address as ihr
- Kommen Sie! Formal command: verb first, then Sie
- Nimm! Lies! Fahr! du-command with e→i or e→ie vowel change
- Sei! Seid! Seien Sie! Commands with sein: be
- bitte, mal, doch Softens a command: please, a moment, why not
- Gehen wir! Let's do something together
Example sentences from Tatoeba, used under CC BY 2.0 FR. See sources.