Pedir followed by the Spanish imperfect subjunctive to ask someone to do something

To ask someone to do something in Spanish, we normally use the verb pedir (to ask in this context). This is how it works if we express it in El Pretérito Imperfecto, El Pretérito Indefinido or El Pretérito Pluscuamperfecto:

With "pedir" you will generally find an indirect object pronoun (me, te, le, nos, os, les) in this type of sentence as one normally asks "someone" to do something, e.g "me pidió que...", "les había pedido que..." or an indirect object always using "a", e.g "Ella pedía a su hermano que...", "yo nunca pedí a Antonio que...". In English there is no need to use a preposition: "He asked Laura..." but in Spanish you do need "a": "Le pidió a Laura que...".

Using the verb decir as a command

The Spanish verb decir is also used as a command when you want to say for example: they told me/asked me to do something. It generally (but not always) expresses a stronger request than the verb pedir which conveys more politeness.

As with pedir que, decir que, used as a command verb, is always followed by the subjunctive. It's mostly used in past tenses, therefore this will trigger the El Pretérito Imperfecto Subjuntivo:

Here are other examples:

Remember:

See also Pedir followed by the Spanish present subjunctive to ask someone to do something

Also remember that in Spanish there are two possible conjugations for El Pretérito Imperfecto Subjuntivo. To revise this see Conjugate Spanish verbs in the Spanish imperfect subjunctive tense (El Imperfecto de Subjuntivo)