How can I use the Imperative?

The imperative mood is used to give people 'orders' so it can be a fun mood to use!

Now you wouldn't give orders to yourself (je), random hes and shes (il, elle) or random groupes of people (ils, elles), you would only give them to yous (tu), a group of people in which you are included (nous) or on that is really close to you and you can talk to directly (vous).

This mood is easy as it doesn't require the use of pronouns, just like in English (Come to class!).

For this mood the conjugation of verbs follows the same logic as the present tense, except you will remember verbs used with 'tu' always have an 's' at the end in the present tense, well they don't have it in the imperative mood, that is the only change.

For instance, let's give a few orders:

- Donne moi ce live (Give me this book) -> ending in 'e' with no 's' that must be an order for a 'tu'

- Allons en cours (Let's go to class) -> ending in 'ons' that must be an order for 'nous'

- Chantez nous une chanson (Sing us a song) -> ending in 'ez' that must be an order for 'vous'

See? as long as you know the present tense you can use the imperative mood easily!

Do you want to try it yourself?

- say 'Take my hand' in French to a 'tu' and a 'vous' (tip: the endings will differ but think back to present tense endings and the fact that the 'tu' doesn't take an 's' in the imperative mood)

- Who does this order refer to: tu, nous or vous? Allons a la piscine!

And there you have it, you have just used the Imperative mood!