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I am almost positive that "denme" is the proper way to form the command/imperative "Give me" in Spanish when you are commanding multiple people who are in a position of authority or respect to you...

...However, dar's imperative is irregular in that the informal form is the same as the formal. So, in reality, regardless of who you are commanding or entreating, you will always use "dé" or "den" for individuals and multiple people respectively.

For example, if you are working with your boss in a kitchen, feeling particularly taciturn, and cooking some steaks, you might say:

"Give me the salt, please", which in Spanish would translate to "Deme la sal, por favor."

While perhaps a bit brutish sounding in this context, this previous command is technically not impolite. However, say you and your spouse are walking through a particularly criminal neighbourhood and are mugged. Your mugger would certainly not be interested in speaking to you formally, but still the structure of the command is the same. Now though, because he/she is commanding two people, you might hear:

"Give me both of your wallets! Now!" which in Spanish would translate as "¡Denme ambas de tus carteras! ¡Ahora mismo!"

You probably noticed that the accent from dé is no longer present in either of these commands. This is because with the indirect-object pronoun (me) at the end of the imperative (which I believe is always, or at least almost always the case with commands), the stress naturally falls on the penultimate syllable, as it should, and therefore the accent is no longer necessary.

I hope this is helpful to you.

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13y ago

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