Don't do it! Conjugate negative imperatives, that is...

One thing that struck me as strange for a long time was how the infinitive (full -re ending, like parlare, capire, volere) kept popping up from time to time in a seemingly imperative manner.

Well, truth be told it still seems to happen occasionally in a manner I can't explain, but I managed to finally solve the bulk of the mystery by one day stumbling on the fact that you use the infinitive for the negative imperative! (*for the informal "tu", which is the most common...)

OK OK, so many of you might say "of course! That's what it says in the book...". That might be true, but somehow I missed that page. Others of you might be saying, "Huh? What the heck are you talking about?", so I'll break it down a bit.

An imperative is a command, when you tell someone to do something, such as "Bring me the book!" or "Close the door!" or "Shut up!". These are considered positive imperatives, and are conjugated according to a certain scheme... "Portami il libro!", "Chiudi la porta!", "Stai zitto!".

A negative imperative, naturally, is the opposite- when you tell someone to NOT do something. "Don't go to work", "Don't leave me", "Don't worry". All of these are formed simply with the infinitive... "Non andare al lavoro", "Non mi lasciare", "Non ti preoccupare".

To the untrained eye, those can seem a bit strange... "Don't to-go to work"? "Don't to worry yourself"? But lucky you, you're no longer untrained!

Ma tu fai senso!

A man from Italy arrives in NYC.
He goes to a candy shop and buys a candy.
Then the shopkeeper asks him : -Five Cents !-

The man becomes very angry and replies. : - TU FAI SENS !!!!!!!!!
Taken from here

Why was the man upset? Because "fai senso" is bad, and pretty much means "you disgust me".

Quick, pop quiz: How would you say "that makes sense" in Italian?

Virtually all learners start with the direct translation, which would be.... "fa senso"! (fare=to do, to make) See where I'm going here?

Indeed, "fa senso" does not mean "it makes sense" in the literal way, but rather "it's horrible" (more or less). To say that something "makes sense", you actually say instead that it "has sense", which would be "ha senso".

Some examples:
"It doesn't make sense to travel so much" -> "non ha senso viaggiare così tanto"

"In my opinion, the lawyer's argument didn't make sense" -> "Secondo me, l'argomento del avvocato non aveva senso"

Ultimately, that small joke/story (barzeletta) above is what really helped me remember this, and hopefully it'll help you too! Ha senso? Spero di si!