A framework for generating and presenting verbal command suggestions to facilitate discoverability of commands capable of being understood and support users exploring available commands. A target associated with a direct-manipulation input is received from a user via a multimodal user interface. A set of operations relevant to the target is selected and verbal command suggestions relevant to the selected set of operations and the determined target are generated. At least a portion of the generated verbal command suggestions is provided for presentation in association with the multimodal user interface in one of three interface variants: one that presents command suggestions as a list, one that presents command suggestions using contextual overlay windows, and one that presents command suggestions embedded within the interface. Each of the proposed interface variants facilitates user awareness of verbal commands that are capable of being executed and teaches users how available verbal commands can be invoked.