A1 · Requests and commands
Imperative: the three forms
One English form becomes three, and one of them is «let’s».
At a glance
- Remember
- partons is «let’s leave», in one word.
- Form
- parle !speak!
- Signal words
- s’il te plaît
- s’il vous plaît
- vite
- donc
- Trap
- Wrong:Parles plus fort !Right:Parle plus fort !
Your turn
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The form
How the forms are built
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in French. The colours show what changes from one form to the next.
stem (regular) person ending negation
| speak! | parle ! |
| let’s speak! | parlons ! |
| speak! (polite or plural) | parlez ! |
| finish! | finis ! |
| let’s finish! | finissons ! |
| finish! (polite or plural) | finissez ! |
| wait! | attends ! |
| let’s wait! | attendons ! |
| wait! (polite or plural) | attendez ! |
| don’t speak! | ne parle pas ! |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
The imperative has three persons only: tu, nous, vous.
Regarde ! Regardons ! Regardez !Look! Let’s look! Look!
With -er verbs the tu form loses its s.
Ferme la porte, s’il te plaît.Close the door, please.
The vous form is both the polite one and the plural.
Entrez, je vous en prie.Come in, please.
The negation brackets the verb as usual.
N’oublie pas ton passeport.Do not forget your passport.
Example sentences
Écoute bien, c’est important.Listen carefully, it is important.
Allons au marché ce matin.Let’s go to the market this morning.
Ne fermez pas la fenêtre, il fait chaud.Do not close the window, it is warm.
Attends une minute, j’arrive.Wait a minute, I am coming.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
Copying the tu form straight out of the present leaves an s too many on the -er verbs. Tu parles has one; parle ! does not. The exception is itself a rule: before y and en the s comes back so the words link — vas-y, manges-en. Nothing in English marks any of this, because «speak» is «speak» in every position.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
Take the present tense and drop the pronoun: tu finis gives finis, nous partons gives partons, vous venez gives venez. English does the same subtraction and arrives at one form, because its present tense has almost no endings left to distinguish.
With verbs in -er — and with aller, ouvrir, offrir — the tu form loses its s: tu parles gives parle, tu vas gives va. There is nothing in English to remind you, so this is the letter that goes missing least often and gets added most often.
Negation works as usual, only without a subject: ne parle pas, n'oubliez pas. No «do» is needed — English's «do not look» adds a verb, and French simply brackets the one it has.
The nous form is an instruction to your own group, and it is the one shape English builds differently. «Let's go» needs three words and a verb that means nothing here; French says Allons-y, one word, an ordinary imperative of the ordinary verb. Once you see that partons is «let's leave» and not «we leave», the form stops looking odd.
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The verbs on this page, in every form: regarder · être · faire · arriver · aller · attendre · plaire · écouter