The French Imperative: How to Give Commands

You're standing in line at a boulangerie and the person behind the counter says "Prenez un numéro !" -- no "you should," no polite wrapper, just a bare verb form that doesn't match any present-tense ending you've memorized. If your brain stalls for a second trying to trace prenez back to prendre, you're not alone -- the imperative is one of the few French moods that looks nothing like the present tense you already know, and it's everywhere: recipes, signs, teachers, friends telling you to hurry up.

Giving and understanding commands is not a niche skill you can put off -- it's some of the most common French you'll hear in a single day, whether it's a waiter saying Asseyez-vous ! (Have a seat!), a friend saying Attends ! (Wait!), or a recipe telling you to Ajoutez le sel (Add the salt). The French imperative mood builds commands differently enough from English that a beginner who's only studied the present tense can genuinely be caught off guard by it, and mixing up the tu and vous forms here can come across as either childish or stiffly formal, so it's worth learning properly rather than picking it up by accident.

The good news is the French imperative isn't a brand-new set of endings to memorize -- it's built directly from the present tense of tu, nous, and vous, just with the subject pronoun dropped. There's no je or il/elle imperative at all, because you can't order yourself or a third person around the same way you order "you" or "we." Regular -re and -ir verbs keep their ordinary present-tense endings: from attendre (to wait) you get Attends ! Attendons ! Attendez ! and from finir (to finish) you get Finis ! Finissons ! Finissez ! Regular -er verbs, and the irregular verb aller (which conjugates like one), drop the final -s from the tu form -- a change that exists purely for pronunciation and has no parallel anywhere else in French: tu parles becomes Parle !, tu manges becomes Mange !, tu vas becomes Va ! That -s does come back, though, whenever the next word starts with a vowel, simply to avoid two vowel sounds colliding: Vas-y ! (Go on!/Go there!), Manges-en ! (Eat some!).

Reflexive verbs add one more layer: in an affirmative command the reflexive pronoun jumps after the verb and attaches with a hyphen, and te switches to the stressed form toi. Lève-toi ! (Get up!), Asseyez-vous ! (Sit down!), Dépêchons-nous ! (Let's hurry!). Negate the same command and the pronoun moves back in front of the verb in its ordinary unstressed form, exactly like any other negative sentence: Ne te lève pas ! (Don't get up!), Ne vous asseyez pas ! (Don't sit down!). Keeping toi and te straight here trips up a lot of English speakers, since English never moves a pronoun around a command at all.

Three verbs skip the regular pattern entirely and build their imperative from a different stem: être gives Sois ! Soyons ! Soyez ! (Be...!), avoir gives Aie ! Ayons ! Ayez ! (Have...!), and savoir gives Sache ! Sachons ! Sachez ! (Know...!). You'll meet these constantly in fixed expressions -- Sois sage ! (Behave!, literally "be wise"), N'ayez pas peur ! (Don't be afraid!), Sachez que... (Know that..., a formal way to flag an important fact) -- and since no rule predicts them from the present tense, they simply have to be learned as a short, memorable set.

Written commands in France often skip the imperative altogether in favor of the infinitive, which is the standard, impersonal way French phrases public signs and recipe steps: Ne pas fumer (No smoking), Mélanger les œufs et le sucre (Mix the eggs and the sugar) -- both read like instructions but are grammatically infinitives, not true imperatives. In conversation, a bare imperative can land as blunt, so French speakers soften it constantly with s'il te plaît / s'il vous plaît, or sidestep it entirely with a question: Pouvez-vous fermer la porte ? (Could you close the door?) is far more common in a polite request than the flat command Fermez la porte !

Key phrases to know: Attends ! (ah-tahn) -- Wait! Dépêche-toi ! (day-pesh-twah) -- Hurry up! (to a friend). Dépêchez-vous ! (day-peh-shay-voo) -- Hurry up! (formal or plural). Lève-toi ! / Levez-vous ! (lev-twah / luh-vay-voo) -- Get up!/Stand up! Assieds-toi ! / Asseyez-vous ! (ah-syay-twah / ah-say-yay-voo) -- Sit down! Sois sage ! (swah sazh) -- Behave! N'aie pas peur ! (nay pah puhr) -- Don't be afraid! Regarde ! / Regardez ! (ruh-gard / ruh-gar-day) -- Look! Écoute ! / Écoutez ! (ay-koot / ay-koo-tay) -- Listen! Allons-y ! (ah-lohn-zee) -- Let's go! Vas-y ! / Allez-y ! (vah-zee / ah-lay-zee) -- Go on!/Go ahead! [AUDIO: allons-y] [AUDIO: vas-y]

Picture a French friend showing you their grandmother's crêpe recipe. It reads: Mélangez la farine, les œufs et le lait. Laissez reposer la pâte trente minutes. Faites chauffer une poêle, puis versez une louche de pâte. -- (Mix the flour, eggs, and milk. Let the batter rest for thirty minutes. Heat a pan, then pour in a ladle of batter.) Every verb there is a vous-form imperative, because a recipe addresses an anonymous reader formally by default. Later, that same friend leans over the stove and says to you directly, Attends, ne la retourne pas encore ! (Wait, don't flip it yet!) -- switching to tu because now they're talking to you, one on one.

Try it yourself. 1) Fill in the blank with the tu-form imperative of manger: ___ tes légumes ! 2) Translate to French, using vous: "Sit down and listen." 3) Fill in the blank with the correct reflexive imperative: (se lever, tu) ___ ! 4) Translate to French, using tu: "Don't be afraid." 5) Multiple choice: which of these is a true imperative rather than an infinitive-as-instruction -- Ne pas fumer, or Sachez que c'est fermé ? 6) Translate to French: "Let's go!"

Answer key: 1) Mange -- Mange tes légumes ! 2) Asseyez-vous et écoutez. 3) Lève-toi ! 4) N'aie pas peur. 5) Sachez que c'est fermé -- it's a genuine imperative form of savoir; Ne pas fumer uses the infinitive instead. 6) Allons-y !

Three things to carry with you: build the imperative from the tu/nous/vous present tense with the pronoun dropped, remembering that -er verbs (and aller) lose their final -s in the tu form. Move reflexive pronouns after the verb -- and switch te to toi -- in affirmative commands, then flip them back in front for negative ones. And keep être, avoir, and savoir on hand as the three verbs that build their imperative from a completely different stem. Next time you're following a French recipe or giving directions to a French-speaking friend, try building the command yourself instead of translating word for word. Head over to Exercises to drill more imperative forms, or check out the tu vs. vous guide to sharpen the formality choice these commands depend on.