Enlève le couvercle quand l’eau bout.

It is the informal singular imperative of enlever. In other words, it is the tu command form: Enlève ... = Remove ... / Take off ...

French imperatives are used for instructions, commands, and recipes.

In French, the subject pronoun is normally left out in the imperative.

So instead of Tu enlèves le couvercle, the command becomes simply Enlève le couvercle.

That is normal for commands:

• Prends le livre.
• Ferme la porte.
• Enlève le couvercle.

It is informal singular, because it uses the tu imperative: Enlève.

If you wanted to say it to:

• one person formally, or
• several people,

you would use enlevez:

Enlevez le couvercle quand l’eau bout.

French usually needs an article before a noun, where English often does not.

So French says:

• le couvercle = the lid

Even if English might naturally say Remove the lid or sometimes just talk about lid in a general instruction, French normally keeps the article.

Here, enlever means to remove, to take off, or to lift off.

With le couvercle, it means removing the lid from something like a pot or pan.

Depending on context, enlever can also mean other things, such as:

• to take away
• to remove
• to pick up

But in this sentence, remove the lid is the natural meaning.

Because French uses elision before a vowel sound.

La becomes l’ before eau, since eau begins with a vowel sound.

So:

• la table
• la casserole
• l’eau

This is very common in French:

• l’homme
• l’idée
• l’école

Quand means when.

It introduces the time clause quand l’eau bout, which tells you when to remove the lid.

So the structure is:

• Enlève le couvercle = main instruction
• quand l’eau bout = the moment when you should do it

Bout is the third-person singular present form of the verb bouillir, which means to boil.

So:

• je bous
• tu bous
• il / elle / on bout

That spelling can look surprising to English speakers, but it is just the standard conjugation of bouillir.

In this sentence, l’eau is singular, so French uses bout.

It is the present tense.

French often uses the present tense in instructions and general statements, even where English might think in terms like when the water boils or when the water is boiling.

Here, quand l’eau bout means something like:

• when the water boils
• once the water is boiling

The exact English wording depends on context, but the French present tense is completely normal here.

Usually it means when the water reaches the boiling point / starts boiling, though in practical instructions it can also be understood as once the water is boiling.

In cooking directions, French often relies on context rather than making this distinction very sharply.

So a learner should understand it as:

• when the water boils or
• once the water is boiling

This is part of a stem change that happens in some forms of enlever.

Compare:

• infinitive: enlever
• imperative / present form: enlève

The e changes to è in certain forms so that the pronunciation stays natural.

You also see this in the present tense:

• j’enlève
• tu enlèves
• il enlève

But:

• nous enlevons
• vous enlevez

A simple pronunciation guide is:

ahn-LEV luh koo-VER-kluh kahn loh boo

A few useful points:

• Enlève sounds roughly like ahn-LEV
• l’eau sounds like loh
• bout sounds like boo
• In normal speech, quand l’eau links smoothly together

The final t in bout is not pronounced.

Yes. French instructions can be phrased in several natural ways.

For example:

• Enlevez le couvercle quand l’eau bout. — formal or plural command
• Retirez le couvercle quand l’eau bout. — slightly more formal, often seen in instructions
• Ôtez le couvercle quand l’eau bout. — also means remove the lid

But Enlève le couvercle quand l’eau bout is perfectly natural as a direct instruction to one person you address with tu.