Imperative Mood
Study it, understand it, use it
When it comes to the imperative, your first thought might be about 👑 bossing someone around, but there's a lot more to it than that. In addition to giving orders, the imperative is also used to provide instructions, make requests,🙏 offer advice, and more. So knowing how to use this verb form is, ahem, imperative for many everyday situations.
Today's issue of Lawless French à fond takes an in-depth look at the imperative mood, including conjugations, uses, and word order.
Table of Contents
Lessons
🏁 First things first: the imperative is a verb mood, not a tense. If you're not familiar with it, start with my Introduction to the imperative.
Like all French verb forms, you have to conjugate the imperative, but for the most part, these conjugations are pretty easy, especially since there are only three conjugations (for tu, nous, and vous), rather than the six found in other verb tenses and moods. But do be careful with the imperative for tu - it's a little trickier than you might realize.
When giving orders to not 🙅 do something, you need the negative imperative.
Rarely, you might want to give orders for something to be done before something else. ⏰ For this, you can use the past imperative.
The imperative is not the only way to give orders - there are several other options, including the third-person imperative which is handy when expressing something you want a third party (i.e., not tu, nous, or vous) to do.
The imperative may be found in si clauses, when the command depends on some condition being met.
🤔 The order of pronouns with the affirmative imperative is different than with every other tense and mood.
Listening
Practice your listening comprehension with these sound files featuring imperatives.
Dictées
Combined listening and writing practice.
🙋 B1 - B2 ?
These are 2 of the 6 CEFR proficiency levels.
Quiz Time
See how you do with imperative conjugations in these fill-in-the-blanks quizzes.
Writing
Practice your French translation skills with these writing exercises featuring the imperative.
Need More Practice?
Chapter 14 of my French Workbook for Dummies covers the imperative and includes 8 different quizzes.
Juste pour rigoler
Comic courtesy of Malachi Ray Rempen, ItchyFeetComic.com
💗 Remerciements
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