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I am unsure of the right usage, which is quite a basic question admittedly.

I assume that it works the following way : to address several people, whether there is a mark of reverence/politeness or not we say

Tenetemi informato

to address one person we are close to we say

Tienimi informato

and to address one person with a mark of reverence/politeness we say

Tengami informato

Is the assumption correct, or what is the right imperative construction for the various cases?

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    The last construction is very old-fashioned. I don't even think that anybody has said it; but it used to be employed in formal contexts such as letters.
    – egreg ♦
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 17:50

1 Answer 1

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Almost. The usual form is

Mi tenga informato.

or (just using a different verb):

Mi mantenga informato.

That is, when using the formal addressing imperative, the pronoun goes before the verb as a word on its own, insted of becoming a suffix as you correctly do for the other cases.

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    I'll add that the analogous formal form, when addressing more than one person, is mi tengano informato (3rd person plural), but it is now very rare, and most people use the 2nd person (tenetemi) even when addressing strangers.
    – DaG
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:48
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    @DaG thanks for reminding that. In my experience, the 3rd person plural formal form is very rare nowadays, but it's good to mention it for completeness.
    – persson
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 22:17

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