3.10 The imperative and the simple future — Epoché
What you will be able to do Make all three forms of the imperative — the familiar singular, the plural or polite, and the one that means let us — from forms you already have, with almost nothing new to learn. Put object and reflexive pronouns in the right place, which is after the verb in a positive command and before it in a negative one, so that the negative moves them. Build the simple future from the infinitive, and say when a French speaker would use it rather than the construction with the verb for going. Map the two French futures onto English going to and will , and see where the map holds and where it does not. Sentences from this lesson, before the explanation. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English Arrête d'essayer. [1] Stop trying. Aide Ziri. [2] Help Ziri out. Allez voir. [3] Go find out. Allez dormir ! [4] Go to sleep! Allons danser. [5] Let's go dancing. Prerequisites : 3.9 — you need the present of the regular groups and of the irregular verbs of lessons 3.6 and 3.7, because the imperative is made from the present, and the reflexive pronouns of the last lesson, because half the difficulty of the imperative is where to put them. This lesson introduces two things you can use at once. The imperative, for telling somebody to do something, costs almost nothing: three forms borrowed from the present, and four irregular verbs. The simple future is built by adding endings to the whole infinitive — and in speech it is less useful than the near future construction of lesson 3.6. Both are about getting something to happen, by telling or by predicting, and in both English speakers have a usable instinct that needs only a small correction. English commands also drop the subject pronoun, and English also has two futures chosen on grounds of immediacy. Three forms, and all three are free Take the present tense, remove the subject pronoun, and you have the imperative. Three cells give three imperatives: the second person singular for someone you address familiarly, the second person plural for a group or for polite address, and the first person plural for let us . One spelling adjustment: in the first group, the second person singular loses its silent final letter. The sound is unchanged; only the writing differs. The second group keeps its letter, and so do most verbs of the third; the exceptions are the few third-group verbs whose present is conjugated like the first group, such as ouvrir and offrir ( ouvre , offre ). The verb for going behaves like the first group here, though it is irregular. English instinct is right about the first two forms and wrong about the third. English drops the subject — go , not you go — and so does French. But for let us , English needs a helper verb and a pronoun; French uses the first person plural without its pronoun. One word where English needs three, so the French form is far commoner: where English says shall we go or why don't we go , French has a single word ready. Four verbs you know have an irregular imperative: those for being, having, knowing and wanting take it from the subjunctive, which this course reaches much later. Learn the first three now; the fourth lives mainly in one frozen, very polite form, seen at the end of formal letters and heard from officials. Table The three forms, with one verb from each regular group and one irregular verb. Form parler , to speak familiar singular parle plural or polite parlez let us parlons Form finir , to finish familiar singular finis plural or polite finissez let us finissons Form aller , to go familiar singular va plural or polite allez let us allons Verb The four irregular imperatives être , to be sois · soyez · soyons avoir , to have aie · ayez · ayons savoir , to know sache · sachez · sachons vouloir , to want veuille · veuillez Everything else is regular here, including the verbs of lessons 3.6 and 3.7 apart from the two in that last table. The imperative of the verb for doing is its second person plural, unique ending and all. So the whole imperative is four irregular verbs and one silent letter. Now the simple future, built on a new principle: the endings go onto the whole infinitive , not a stem. The infinitive is visible in all six forms of the next table. Person parler in the simple future 1 sg je parlerai 2 sg tu parleras 3 sg il parlera 1 pl nous parlerons 2 pl vous parlerez 3 pl ils parleront The endings are the present of the verb for having, with the first and second person plural shortened. The tense began as an infinitive followed by that verb, meaning I have to speak , still to be done. English built its future from a verb of wanting, which is why will still means want in if you will . French glued its pieces together; English did not. Verb Its future stem être , to be ser- avoir , to have aur- aller , to go ir- faire , to do fer- venir , to come viendr- voir , to see verr- pouvoir , to be able to pourr- vouloir , to want voudr- devoir , to have to devr- savoir , to know saur- falloir , to be necessary faudr- pleuvoir , to rain pleuvr- These are the commonest irregular stems, not all of them, and all take the same six endings. Every stem ends in the same consonant as the infinitives of one regular family, so even the irregulars keep a shape. The stem of the verb for wanting is the one you learned as a polite request in lesson 3.7: the conditional is this stem with different endings, so that memorised form already gave you a piece of two tenses. How to read the endings The imperative sounds exactly like the present forms it is taken from; the dropped letter in the first group is silent. If you can say the present you can say the imperative, and the work of this half of the lesson is where to put the pronouns. What changes is the melody. A French command falls in pitch from the first syllable, more steeply than an English speaker expects. A request with English intonation sounds hesitant; a statement can sound peremptory if it uses command intonation. Since