The imperative mood is used to give commands, instructions, and directions — 'Turn left', 'Go straight', 'Take the second street' — and French forms it in a distinctive way: you take the present-tense tu, nous, or vous form of a verb and simply drop the subject pronoun, leaving just the conjugated verb standing alone. There is no separate imperative conjugation to memorize beyond the present tense you already know; the challenge is remembering which pronoun-form to strip and, for one specific case, an extra spelling adjustment.
The tu-form imperative of -er verbs (and the irregular verb aller, which conjugates like an -er verb in the present) drops the final -s that normally appears in the tu form: tu parles becomes Parle ! (Speak!) and tu vas becomes Va ! (Go!) — notice the -s is removed only for this specific case. This doesn't apply to -ir or -re verbs, whose tu-forms don't end in a silent -s to begin with (tu finis stays Finis !, tu attends stays Attends !). This -s-dropping rule exists purely for historical pronunciation reasons and must simply be memorized as an exception tied to -er verbs and aller.
French has three imperative forms because it has three possible 'you/we' targets for a command: the tu-form (Tourne à gauche ! — Turn left!, informal singular), the nous-form (Tournons à gauche ! — Let's turn left!, an inclusive suggestion including the speaker), and the vous-form (Tournez à gauche !, formal or plural). This nous-form imperative — used to propose 'let's do X' — has no single-word English equivalent; English needs the extra word 'let's', while French achieves the same meaning just by using the bare nous-conjugation with no pronoun. For pronominal (reflexive) verbs in the imperative, the reflexive pronoun moves after the verb and attaches with a hyphen, and te becomes the stressed form toi: Lève-toi ! (Get up!), Asseyez-vous ! (Sit down!).
Exemples
Tourne à gauche au feu rouge.
Turn left at the traffic light.
Tu-form imperative: pronoun dropped, verb form kept.
Continuez tout droit pendant deux cents mètres.
Continue straight for two hundred meters.
Vous-form imperative, formal/plural.
Prenons le métro, c'est plus rapide.
Let's take the subway, it's faster.
Nous-form imperative expresses 'let's', with no separate word for 'let's' needed.
Va tout droit, puis tourne à droite.
Go straight, then turn right.
'Va' (imperative of aller) drops the -s that 'tu vas' has in the present tense.
Ne traversez pas maintenant !
Don't cross now!
Negative imperative: 'ne...pas' wraps around the verb exactly as in a regular negation.
Prends la deuxième rue à droite.
Take the second street on the right.
'Prends' keeps its -s because 'prendre' is an -re verb, not -er.
Attendez le bus ici, s'il vous plaît.
Wait for the bus here, please.
Descends à la prochaine station.
Get off at the next station.
Levez-vous et suivez-moi.
Stand up and follow me.
Reflexive pronoun 'vous' moves after the verb with a hyphen in the affirmative imperative.
Ne te perds pas dans ce quartier.
Don't get lost in this neighborhood.
In the negative imperative, the reflexive pronoun moves back before the verb: 'ne te perds pas'.
Erreurs fréquentes
- Keeping the -s on tu-form imperatives of -er verbs, saying 'Tournes à gauche' instead of the correct 'Tourne à gauche'.
- Dropping the -s from -ir or -re verb imperatives by over-applying the -er rule, saying 'Attend' instead of the correct 'Attends' or 'Prend' instead of 'Prends'.
- Including the subject pronoun out of habit (saying 'Tu tourne à gauche' as a command) instead of dropping it entirely, since the imperative is defined precisely by the pronoun's absence.
- Placing the reflexive pronoun before the verb in an affirmative command (saying 'Te lève !' instead of the correct 'Lève-toi !'), forgetting it must move after the verb and attach with a hyphen.
- Forgetting that 'te' becomes the stressed form 'toi' when it moves after the verb in an affirmative imperative.
Pourquoi ça trompe les anglophones
- English commands simply drop the subject with no other change to the verb ('You go' → 'Go'), so the extra step of also dropping a final -s specifically for -er verbs (parle, va) is an added layer of complexity with no English parallel.
- English has no built-in grammatical form for 'let's' — it's a separate contraction of 'let us' — while French folds that exact meaning into the ordinary nous-conjugation used as a command, which requires recognizing a familiar verb form being repurposed for a new function.
- The reflexive pronoun flipping position (before the verb normally, after the verb with a hyphen in affirmative commands, and te→toi) adds a movement rule that has no counterpart in English commands, which never involve a reflexive pronoun for these routine verbs to begin with.