French Imperative, French Commands

Home Alphabet Adjectives Verbs Nouns French 101 Phrases Vocabulary Expressions More…

French Imperative

Salim 2006 © speak7.com

I Like this Page

You will learn in this lesson: French Imperative, French Commands.

French Imperative

The imperative is used in French the same way it is used in English, to give an order, offer an advice, request something ... Note that the imperative in French doesn’t use subject pronouns (je, tu, il ….) and if it’s necessary to use them they would be used after the verb and not after, also note that there are only three forms in the imperative (tu/ you, nous/ we, and vous/ you guys or you polite), which makes it easy for you to master.

Ouvre la fenêtre: Open the window! (familiar)

Ouvrons la fenêtre: let’s open the window

Ouvrez la fenêtre! Open the window! (polite)

Allons y! Let’s go!

The good news is that to conjugate the imperative of verbs ending in (-ir) and (-er) you simply need to use the indicative present conjugation.

While the imperative of (-er) verbs are conjugated the same as the indicative present, but the final s of the tu form should be omitted.

Tu regardes/ you look. becomes : Regarde! Look!

The only irregular forms in the imperative are the verbs (avoir/to have, être/ to be, savoir/ to know, vouloir/ to want to)

French Imperative
Second person singular	aie	sois	sache	veuille
First person plural	ayons	soyons	sachons	veuillons
Second person plural/ or polite form	ayez	soyez	sachez	veuillez

And finally to make a negative command, simply place (ne) or (n’ before a vowel) in front of the verb and the appropriate negative adverb (pas, plus… after the verb:

N’ouvre pas la fenêtre: don’t open the window! (familiar)

N’ouvrons pas la fenêtre: let’s not open the window

N’ouvrez pas la fenêtre! don’t Open the window! (polite)

French Imperative, French Commands.