Impératif
Détendez-vous et respirez!
Niveau A2-B1
L’impératif is a super useful tense if you are a parent, a teacher or if you like yoga or zumba. It is a tense that we use in order to give instructions or orders. Good news : It is quite simple. You just need «tu» «vous» «nous» in the present tense but without the subject. So for the verb “dormir”, it is :
- Dors
- Dormons
- Dormez
For the verbs that end in “er”, you don’t keep the «s» of the «tu» form. Why? Because it is good to mess with peoples’ brain and you know what, moreover it doesn’t make sense at all because you have to put it back when you use the pronouns «y» or «en». I hated it when I was a little hamster and I still hate it now! But let’s focus on the conjugation!
So for manger :
- Mange (no “s”)
- Mangeons
- Mangez
- Mange ta soupe!
- Regarde le joli petit chien!
- Tiens, prends mon sac, s’il te plaît.
- Montre-moi ton dessin!
Of course, there are exceptions because what would be a French conjugation without exceptions? But not too many!
Aller can be considered as an irregular verb because it losses its «s» with «tu» (and it makes sense because it is a verb ending with “er”).
Aller : va, allons, allez
- Va dire bonjour à madame Hamster!
And then you have :
Être : sois, soyons, soyez
Avoir : aie, ayons, ayez
Savoir : sache, sachons, sachez
- Sois patient!
- Ayons du courage!
- Sache que je suis pas content!
« Vouloir » seems to have officially two conjugations. Again, why keep it simple when you can make it unnecessarily complicated? One of this conjugations is completely regular but we rarely use it and most of the time we use it with a negation.
For example, we often say « Je suis désolée, ne m’en veux pas.», which can be translated « I am so sorry, don’t hold it against me!». In this case, «en vouloir à quelqu’un» means “to have a grudge against someone” or “to hold something against someone”. It is not the regular meaning of «vouloir», which is “to want”.
For « vouloir » = “to want”, we also have an irregular conjugation : veuille, veuillons, veuillez.
In general, we only use «veuillez» in order to be polite while giving an instruction. For example, « Veuillez vous asseoir s’il vous plaît. ». (Please have a seat).
If you love yoga, you can practice «l’impératif» all the time (check online yoga classes in French, and you will become healthy and good in French, it’s a win-win).
- Levez les bras.
- Détendez-vous.
- Respirez par le nez, expirez par la bouche.
- Attrapez votre mollet gauche avec votre main droite.
- Étirez les muscles de votre dos.
- Regardez loin par dessus votre épaule gauche.
For the negation, it is simple, and if you are a parent, it can be useful sometimes! Well, all the time!
- Ne mange pas ça!
- Ne cours pas, tu vas tomber!
- Ne frappe pas ta sœur avec ton doudou!
- Ne jette pas mon téléphone par la fenêtre.
- Ne tire pas la queue du chat!
- Non, on ne t’a pas trouvé dans une poubelle! N’écoute pas ton frère, il dit n’importe quoi!
