Phrases Impératives: Donner un Ordre

The imperative — l'impératif — is the mood you use to give an order, make a suggestion, offer an invitation, or write a recipe. Pars ! (Leave!), Partons ! (Let's leave!), Partez ! (Leave!). It exists in only three persons (no je, il, elle, ils, elles) and, crucially, drops the subject pronoun entirely. This makes the French imperative one of the most concise sentence types in the language — and one of the easiest to recognize, because a verb standing alone, without a subject, is almost always an imperative.

This page covers the formation of all three forms, how to negate them, what happens when object pronouns enter the picture (where the rules flip between affirmative and negative), and the small set of irregular verbs (être, avoir, savoir, vouloir) whose imperative stems are not predictable from their conjugations.

The three persons

French imperatives exist in only three forms, which match three of the conjugated forms of the present indicative. The key change is that the subject pronoun is dropped.

The forms are taken directly from the present indicative, with one tweak: for -er verbs, the tu form drops the final -s. So tu parles (you speak) becomes parle ! (speak!), not parles !. This silent-s deletion applies to all -er verbs, including the irregular aller (va ! — go!).

There is one euphonic exception: when the tu imperative of an -er verb is immediately followed by the clitic en or y, the -s is restored to ease pronunciation. So Va becomes Vas-y ! (go on!) and Mange becomes Manges-en ! (eat some!). Without the restored -s, the two vowels would clash.

For -ir and -re verbs, the tu imperative is identical to the tu present indicative, with the -s intact:

The nous and vous forms are unchanged from the present indicative — same spelling, same pronunciation. The only difference is the absence of the subject pronoun.

No subject pronoun

This is the rule that English speakers most often violate. French imperatives never carry a subject pronoun.

This is because French uses the absence of the subject pronoun as the grammatical signal that the sentence is an imperative. Tu pars is a statement (You are leaving); Pars is a command (Leave). If you put back the tu, you have un-imperatived the sentence.

Negation: ne...pas

To negate an imperative, wrap the verb in ne...pas as you would in any other sentence — ne before the verb, pas after it. The structure is mechanical and identical to other negated sentences.

The ne contracts to n' before a vowel:

Other negative particles work the same way: ne...rien (don't... anything), ne...jamais (never), ne...plus (no longer), ne...personne (don't... anyone).

In casual spoken French the ne is dropped exactly as in any other sentence: Pars pas !, Fais pas ça !. This is informal but extremely common.

With pronouns: the affirmative-vs-negative flip

The imperative is the one place in French where object pronoun position changes between affirmative and negative. In a normal declarative, object pronouns sit before the verb. In an affirmative imperative, they sit after the verb, joined by hyphens. In a negative imperative, they snap back to the standard position before the verb.

Affirmative imperative: pronoun after, hyphenated

In affirmative imperatives, the pronouns me and te are replaced by their stressed forms moi and toi. Donne-me-le is wrong; donne-le-moi is right. The reason is phonetic: moi is pronounceable in stressed final position, while me (just a schwa or zero) is not.

When two pronouns appear together, the order is fixed: direct object before indirect object — donne-LE-moi (give-IT-me), montre-LA-nous (show-IT-us).

Negative imperative: pronoun before, no hyphens

In the negative form, pronouns return to their standard pre-verbal position, and the moi/toi stressed forms revert to me/te. There are no hyphens — the pronoun is a clitic again, sitting in front of the verb the way it does in any other sentence.

This affirmative-vs-negative flip is one of the trickier points of A1 French. The rule is: affirmative imperative = pronouns after, hyphenated; negative imperative = pronouns before, normal.

Special imperatives: être, avoir, savoir, vouloir

Four common verbs have irregular imperative forms that must be memorized. They borrow their stems from the present subjunctive, not the present indicative, which is why they look different from the rest of the conjugation.

The most common of these in real-world French is veuillez, the vous imperative of vouloir. It is used to express a polite please/kindly request in formal writing — letters, emails, signs, official communication. (formal)

The other forms of vouloir (veuille, veuillons) exist but are extremely rare in modern French — you may go years without seeing them. Veuillez is the practical form to learn.

With pronominal verbs

Pronominal verbs (se laver, se lever, s'asseoir) take the reflexive pronoun as part of their structure. In the imperative, that pronoun follows the same affirmative-vs-negative rule.

The reflexive te becomes toi in the affirmative imperative for the same phonetic reason as the object pronoun. Lève-te is impossible; lève-toi is required.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

French imperatives exist in only three forms — tu, nous, vous — and drop the subject pronoun. The tu imperative of -er verbs loses its final -s (parle !, not parles !); -ir and -re verbs keep the -s. Negation uses standard ne...pas wrapping the verb. The signature complication is pronoun position: in affirmative imperatives, object pronouns come after the verb, hyphenated, with me/te becoming moi/toi; in negative imperatives, pronouns return to the standard pre-verbal position. Four verbs have irregular imperatives borrowed from the subjunctive: être (sois/soyons/soyez), avoir (aie/ayons/ayez), savoir (sache/sachons/sachez), and vouloir (whose only common form, veuillez, is the standard formal please). For deeper coverage of imperative formation, double-pronoun ordering, and softening strategies, see the dedicated verbs/imperative cluster.