L'Impératif: Special and Irregular Forms

The French imperative is overwhelmingly regular — almost every verb in the language builds its imperative directly from the present indicative with one trivial adjustment (the -s drop on -er verbs). But a small number of verbs refuse to play along. Four high-frequency verbs — être, avoir, savoir, vouloir — pull their imperative forms from the present subjunctive instead. A few more are defective and have no imperative at all. And one of the irregular forms — veuillez — is so common in formal French that mastering it unlocks a whole register of polite communication.

This page covers every irregular and defective imperative in French. By the end you should be able to give a command in être, comfort someone in avoir, deliver a formal piece of news with sachez, write a customer-service email using veuillez patienter, and recognize when a verb simply has no imperative form available.

Why these four verbs are irregular

The forms of sois, aie, sache, veuille did not come out of nowhere. They are the present subjunctive stems, repurposed as imperative. The same is true in older Romance languages: Latin used the subjunctive (technically the "hortatory subjunctive") to express commands, and French preserved this for exactly the verbs whose indicative forms would have been awkward as imperatives.

Consider être. Its present indicative tu es would give an imperative Es! — a single vowel, easy to mishear, easy to confuse with the conjunction et or the verb form est. The subjunctive que tu sois gives Sois!, which is unambiguous and rhythmically more substantial. Similarly, aie (from the subjunctive que tu aies) is more usable than the indicative as would have been. The four irregular imperatives are not arbitrary — they are the language's solution to a phonetic problem.

Être: the imperative of "to be"

Être is the most frequently used irregular imperative in everyday French. It tells someone to be a certain way — patient, careful, kind, quiet, brave, on time.

The collocations are everywhere in French parenting, classroom interaction, and friend-to-friend reassurance.

The negative form ne sois pas / ne soyons pas / ne soyez pas is just as common as the affirmative — telling someone not to be a certain way is one of the most frequent uses of être in the imperative.

Avoir: telling someone to "have" a feeling or attitude

Avoir in the imperative almost always governs an abstract noun — patience, peur, pitié, confiance, l'amabilité. It is rarely used to command physical possession ("Have an apple!" is Prends une pomme!, not Aie une pomme!).

The expression ayez l'amabilité de + infinitive (formal) is a register-marked alternative to veuillez + infinitive — slightly warmer, slightly less stiff. Aie pitié is essentially fixed and appears in religious, literary, and emphatic everyday speech.

Savoir: the literary imperative

Savoir in the imperative is almost never used to command someone to acquire knowledge ("Learn that!"). Instead, it functions as a performative — telling the addressee that you are about to deliver information that you want them to retain. Sachez que + clause is the formal equivalent of "Be aware that" or "Please note that."

The nous form sachons is rare and feels somewhat literary; sache and sachez are the workhorses. Both carry a slightly elevated register — sache que is more solemn than the everyday je veux que tu saches que. In a love letter, sache que je t'aime hits harder than tu sais que je t'aime because the imperative is performative: it announces information rather than asserting a state of affairs.

Vouloir: the verb of formal politeness

Vouloir in the imperative is unique: only the vous form veuillez is in everyday use, and it is extremely frequent — far more common in formal writing than the imperative of any other irregular verb. Veuillez + infinitive is the canonical formal "please" of French.

The tu and nous forms are so rare that you may go years of speaking French without encountering them. Veuillez, on the other hand, you will see daily — on signs, in customer-service emails, in business correspondence, in administrative letters, in train-station announcements.

The pattern Veuillez agréer ... + a formula of regards is the standard way to close a formal French letter. Every educated French speaker knows it; using it correctly is a marker of professional literacy.

When to use veuillez vs. s'il vous plaît

Both translate as "please," but they are not interchangeable. S'il vous plaît is everyday politeness — fine in any context, including very formal ones. Veuillez is strongly formal and shifts the entire sentence into a written or institutional register.

If you are speaking face-to-face in a normal conversation, s'il vous plaît is right. Veuillez belongs to signs, announcements, written correspondence, and very formal customer-service interactions. Using it in casual speech sounds parodic — it's the linguistic equivalent of wearing white tie to a barbecue.

Defective imperatives: verbs with no imperative form

Some French verbs lack an imperative form altogether, either because the meaning makes commanding impossible or because the form has fallen out of use.

Impersonal verbs: pleuvoir, falloir, neiger

The weather verbs and the impersonal falloir (to be necessary) take no imperative — you cannot command the rain to fall, and il faut has no second-person subject to address.

To express the meaning "let's do what is necessary," French routes through the subjunctive (Il faut que tu partes) or simply uses the imperative of the action verb itself (Partons!).

Pouvoir: usually expressed as a question

Pouvoir technically has imperative forms in older grammars (puisse, puissions, puissiez), but they survive only in the optative expression puissé-je / puisses-tu + verb ("may I ...!" / "may you ...!") — which is literary and archaic. In modern French, pouvoir commands are routed through the question form pourriez-vous / pouvez-vous + infinitive.

The optative puisses-tu / puissiez-vous is alive only in elevated literary registers and in fixed religious or ceremonial language. Do not use it in conversation.

Valoir: imperative essentially nonexistent

Valoir (to be worth) has theoretical imperative forms — vaux, valons, valez, parallel to its present indicative — but they are essentially never used. The verb has no everyday imperative function: you do not normally command something to be worth a certain amount. When the underlying meaning is needed ("do your part," "make yourself worthy"), French uses other verbs.

In practice, treat valoir as a verb without a usable imperative.

The veuillez + infinitive pattern: register and use

Because veuillez is so common, it deserves a focused look. The pattern is always veuillez + bare infinitive (with object pronouns going before the infinitive, not after veuillez).

The negation pattern is important: Veuillez ne pas + infinitive (not Ne veuillez pas + infinitive). The negation goes with the action verb, because veuillez is functionally a politeness wrapper rather than a verb you negate.

Where you'll see veuillez

• Signs and notices: Veuillez ne pas fumer, Veuillez fermer la porte.
• Customer service emails: Veuillez nous excuser pour la gêne occasionnée, Veuillez trouver ci-joint le document demandé.
• Administrative letters: Veuillez agréer ..., Veuillez compléter et retourner.
• Public announcements: Veuillez monter à bord, Veuillez vous tenir aux barres.
• Voicemail and IVR systems: Veuillez patienter, un opérateur va vous répondre.

The frequency of veuillez in formal French is hard to overstate. If you are working in a French-speaking professional context — writing emails to clients, drafting administrative letters, designing public signage — you will use veuillez daily.

How French differs from English here

English has a single way to make a polite imperative: add "please" before or after the bare command (Please wait, Wait, please). French has at least four distinct strategies, each with its own register:

• Bare imperative — Attends (Wait — informal, between friends)
• Imperative + s'il te plaît / s'il vous plaît — Attendez, s'il vous plaît (Wait, please — everyday polite)
• Conditional question — Pourriez-vous attendre ? (Could you wait? — formal, polite question)
• Veuillez + infinitive — Veuillez patienter (Please wait — institutional formal)

There is no clean English equivalent of veuillez. The closest is "kindly" (as in "Kindly fill out the form below"), but "kindly" is much rarer in English than veuillez is in French. The institutional, written, sign-and-letter register of veuillez is more elaborate than anything in English.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Building the imperative of être / avoir from the indicative.

Mistake 2: Using veuillez in casual conversation.

Mistake 3: Negating veuillez itself instead of the following infinitive.

Mistake 4: Trying to use pouvoir as an imperative in modern speech.

Mistake 5: Using sache que in informal everyday speech where tu sais que would be natural.

Key takeaways

• Four French verbs have irregular imperatives built from the present subjunctive: être (sois, soyons, soyez), avoir (aie, ayons, ayez), savoir (sache, sachons, sachez), vouloir (veuille, veuillons, veuillez).
• Veuillez is the workhorse of the four — the formal "please" of signs, letters, and administrative writing. Its tu and nous forms are essentially never used.
• The pattern is veuillez + bare infinitive, with object pronouns before the infinitive: Veuillez nous excuser, Veuillez vous présenter. Negation: Veuillez ne pas
  • infinitive.
• Defective imperatives: weather verbs (pleuvoir, neiger), the impersonal falloir, and (in modern French) pouvoir have no usable imperative. Route through pourriez-vous
  • infinitive or use a different verb.
• Sache que / sachez que is a performative — it announces information rather than commands learning. Used for solemn, weighty content; sounds odd with trivia.
• Register is everything: veuillez in casual speech sounds parodic; s'il vous plaît in a formal letter sounds underdressed. Match the form to the situation.