The French Imperative - Part 1

In our last lesson, we introduced the French imperative mood, which is used to express a command or a request. We concluded the lesson with a discussion of reflexive verbs, which become hyphenated in the imperative: for example, se souvenir (to remember) becomes souviens-toi! (remember!). In fact, any imperative verb followed by an object pronoun requires a hyphen:

Donne-moi l'info. 
Give me the info. 

An imperative verb can even precede two object pronouns (and therefore two hyphens). For example, we could shorten the above sentence to: 

Ouais, donne-la-moi.
Yeah, give it to me.  

Let's break that down: donne is the imperative verb (give), la is the direct object pronoun ("it," referring to "the info"), and moi is the indirect object pronoun (to me). Note that in imperative expressions like this, the direct object pronoun always comes before the indirect object pronoun.

On the other hand, when you negate an imperative verb with object pronouns, the hyphens disappear and the pronouns move before the verb:

Ne te souviens pas. 
Don't remember. 

Ne me la donne pas.
Don't give it to me. 

Though we mentioned in our previous lesson that the imperative is nearly identical to the present indicative form of a verb, there are four very common verbs for which this is not the case: avoir (to have), être (to be), savoir (to know), and vouloir (to want). For these verbs, the imperative is nearly identical to their present subjunctive forms:

Mon ami, n'aie pas peur

My friend, don't be afraid

Caption 18, Arthur H et M - Est-ce que tu aimes?

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Mais soyons prudents!

But let's be careful!

Caption 18, Il était une fois - les Explorateurs - 10. Amerigo Vespucci

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Sachez qu'il y a de nombreux trains directs

Know that there are numerous trains direct

de Paris vers Trouville, Deauville.

from Paris toward Trouville, Deauville.

Caption 35, Voyage en France - La Normandie: Cabourg

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The imperative form of vouloir is mostly used in the second-person plural (veuillez) as a formal way of saying "please": 

Veuillez ne pas quitter.

Please stay on the line.

Vous allez être mise en relation avec notre secrétariat.

You will be connected to our administrator's office.

Caption 5, Manon et Clémentine - Rendez-vous chez le médecin

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BANNER PLACEHOLDER

That about covers it for the imperative! Don't forget (n'oubliez pas) to check out our new videos this week and don't hesitate (n'hésitez pas) to tweet us @yabla or send your topic suggestions to newsletter@yabla.com.