When reading a user manual, a recipe, or a public safety sign in French, you usually won't see verbs conjugated in standard command forms. Instead, French uses the independent infinitive to give general instructions to an unspecified audience.
Impersonal Commands
To give an impersonal command, simply use the unconjugated infinitive form of the verb. It is direct, concise, and standard in technical writing.
You will often see these infinitives paired with sequencing words like d'abord (first), ensuite (next), puis (then), or enfin (finally) to guide you through a setup process.
Negative Warnings and Instructions
When giving a negative instruction using the infinitive, the rules of negation change slightly. Both parts of the negation (such as ne and pas, or ne and jamais) stay together and are placed directly before the infinitive verb.
Connecting Actions
You can string instructions together using prepositions like sans (without) or avant de (before). In French, these prepositions are also followed directly by an infinitive.
If the second action includes a direct object pronoun (like l' for "it"), the pronoun is placed immediately before the infinitive it belongs to.