Walk through any Dutch railway station, public building or kitchen and you'll meet a verb form English doesn't have: the bare infinitive used as a command. Niet roken ("No smoking"), Deur sluiten ("Close the door"), Hier aanbellen ("Ring here"), Roeren tot het kookt ("Stir until it boils"). Where English uses "No smoking", a bare imperative ("Close the door"), or a noun phrase, Dutch reaches for the plain infinitive — roken, sluiten, aanbellen — placed at the end after its objects and adverbs. This is not a quirk to file under "odd signs you'll see." It is a whole register: the impersonal, addressee-neutral style of officialdom, public notices, manuals and recipes. Recognizing it — and knowing when to write in it — is what this page is about.
The form: bare infinitive, objects first
The instruction infinitive is just the dictionary form of the verb. What's distinctive is the word order: any object, place or manner phrase comes first, and the infinitive lands at the end of the line.
Niet roken.
No smoking. — bare infinitive 'roken' with 'niet'.
Niet aanraken.
Do not touch. — typical museum/exhibit sign.
Deur sluiten.
Close the door. — object 'deur' first, infinitive 'sluiten' last.
Hier aanbellen.
Ring here. — place 'hier' first, then the infinitive.
The negation niet (or niet + a noun) sits in front, just as you'd expect from a verb-final clause. The effect is terse and depersonalized: there's no u or je, no "please", nobody addressed at all. The instruction simply states what is (not) to be done.
Why an infinitive and not an imperative?
Dutch has an imperative — Sluit de deur!, Bel hier aan! — so why do signs avoid it? Because the imperative addresses a specific person. It points a finger: you, do this. That's perfect in conversation, but on a sign or in a recipe there is no specific addressee — the message is for anyone, everyone, no one in particular. The infinitive is addressee-neutral: it names the action without aiming it at a person. That neutrality is exactly the tone officialdom and instructions want.
Bij brand niet de lift gebruiken.
In case of fire, do not use the lift. — impersonal, for anyone who reads it.
Eerst lezen, dan invullen.
Read first, then fill in. — sequence of impersonal instructions on a form.
This is also why the infinitive feels colder than the imperative. A spoken Sluit de deur, alsjeblieft is a polite request to a friend; a posted Deur sluiten is a rule. Using the wrong one jars: barking Roken niet! at a guest sounds like you're reading them a regulation, while writing Rook hier niet, alsjeblieft on an official sign sounds oddly chatty.
Separable verbs stay whole
Because the instruction form is a true infinitive, separable verbs do not split — the prefix stays attached, unlike in a finite clause or an imperative.
Niet openmaken.
Do not open. — separable 'openmaken' stays one word; not 'maak niet open'.
Pakje hier ophangen.
Hang the package here. — separable 'ophangen' whole, object first.
Compare the imperative, where the prefix flies to the end: Maak het pakje niet open! On a sign, that becomes the tidy infinitive Niet openmaken. This is the same whole-word behaviour you see in the nominalized infinitive (verbs/infinitive/nominalized): with no finite verb in the clause, there is nothing to push the prefix away.
The recipe register
Recipes are the other heartland of the instruction infinitive. Step by step, a Dutch recipe lists actions as bare infinitives, objects and quantities first.
200 gram suiker toevoegen en mengen.
Add 200 grams of sugar and stir. — quantities first, infinitives 'toevoegen' and 'mengen' at the end.
Roeren tot het kookt.
Stir until it boils. — 'roeren' as a step instruction.
De oven voorverwarmen op 180 graden.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. — separable 'voorverwarmen' whole, object first.
Laten afkoelen en daarna in de koelkast bewaren.
Let it cool and then keep it in the fridge. — chained infinitive instructions.
Modern recipes do sometimes use the u-imperative instead (Voeg 200 gram suiker toe) for a warmer, more direct tone — cookbooks aimed at home cooks lean this way. But the infinitive remains the neutral, classic recipe style, and you will read it constantly. (Both registers coexist; the infinitive is the more impersonal of the two.) See register/instructional-and-recipes for more on this written style.
The one-word door signs
A handful of single-infinitive signs are worth memorizing as vocabulary, because you'll meet them daily and they look nothing like their English equivalents:
| Dutch sign | English |
|---|---|
| Trekken | Pull (on a door) |
| Duwen | Push (on a door) |
| Niet roken | No smoking |
| Niet storen | Do not disturb |
| Niet parkeren | No parking |
| Aanbellen | Ring (the bell) |
Op de deur stond 'Duwen', maar iedereen bleef trekken.
The door said 'Push', but everyone kept pulling. — 'Duwen'/'trekken' as door instructions.
Note that Trekken and Duwen are infinitives, not imperatives — English's "Pull"/"Push" happen to be identical to its imperative, which hides the difference, but in Dutch the form is unmistakably the infinitive.
Common Mistakes
❌ Alstublieft sluit de deur als u weggaat.
Wrong register for a sign — a notice uses the impersonal infinitive, not a polite full sentence.
✅ Deur sluiten.
Close the door. — the standard sign form.
❌ Maak niet open.
Incorrect for a sign — the instruction infinitive keeps separable verbs whole: 'Niet openmaken'.
✅ Niet openmaken.
Do not open.
❌ Voeg 200 gram suiker toe en meng. (as a neutral recipe step)
Not wrong, but this is the imperative register; the classic neutral recipe uses infinitives.
✅ 200 gram suiker toevoegen en mengen.
Add 200 grams of sugar and stir.
❌ Rook niet hier.
Reads as a spoken command to a person; a sign uses the impersonal 'Niet roken'.
✅ Niet roken.
No smoking.
❌ Roken toevoegen 200 gram suiker.
Wrong order — objects and quantities come first, the infinitive last: '200 gram suiker toevoegen'.
✅ 200 gram suiker toevoegen.
Add 200 grams of sugar.
Key Takeaways
- Dutch signs, notices and recipes use the bare infinitive as an impersonal command: Niet roken, Deur sluiten, Roeren tot het kookt.
- The infinitive is addressee-neutral — it names an action without pointing at a specific person, unlike the imperative.
- This is a full register (officialese, manuals, recipes), parallel to but distinct from the spoken imperative — call it the sign-and-recipe register.
- Word order is objects/adverbs first, infinitive last: 200 gram suiker toevoegen.
- Separable verbs stay whole: Niet openmaken, De oven voorverwarmen.
- Trekken / Duwen on doors are infinitives, not imperatives — the English "Pull"/"Push" hides the distinction.
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Softer Alternatives to the ImperativeB1 — How Dutch avoids the blunt imperative — modal questions, softening particles, je-statements, and the infinitive on signs and recipes — to give instructions without sounding rude.
- Instructional and Recipe StyleB1 — The register of recipes, manuals and how-tos: the bare imperative (Meng, Voeg toe, Druk op), the je-form and formal u-form alternatives, sequence markers (eerst, vervolgens, ten slotte), 'laten' for resting steps, 'zorg dat', and the dropped articles of recipe shorthand.
- The Nominalized Infinitive (het lezen)B2 — How any Dutch infinitive can become a neuter noun with 'het' — the Dutch equivalent of the English gerund — and why 'na het eten' and 'voor het slapengaan' are the standard way to say 'after eating' and 'before sleeping'.
- The Te-Infinitive: OverviewB1 — When a second verb takes the infinitive marker te and when it stays bare — modals and gaan/komen/laten/zien/horen/blijven take a bare infinitive, most other governing verbs require te.