Liberté, 2017a

(pronounced [e]). We will learn more about imperatives in chapter
8; for now, you need only to recognize and understand common
imperatives used in class. Examples:
Ouvrez le livre.
Regardez le tableau.
Ecoutez-moi.
Répétez.
Excusez-moi, Madame.
Open the book.
Look at the board.
Listen to me.
Repeat.
Excuse me, Madame.
B.4.1 Identifying Imperatives
In each of the following sentences, the verb is in the vous form of
the imperative, which almost always ends in the letters -ez. Circle
or write each verb. Also write the English equivalent for each of the
sentences. You may need to use your vocabulary list (page 29) to
translate some of the verbs. (Note: S’il vous plaît means please).
1. Fermez le livre.
2. Excusez-moi, Madame.
3. Ecoutez le vocabulaire.
4. Répétez la phrase.
5. Jean, ouvrez la porte, s’il vous plaît.
6. Marie et José, écrivez au tableau.
7. Pierre, regardez le tableau, s’il vous plaît.
8. S’il vous plaît, épelez votre nom, Monsieur.
9. Tout le monde, prenez un stylo.
10. Allez au tableau.
11. Mettez vos devoirs sur le bureau.
12. Dites bonjour!
B.5 Articles and Gender of Nouns
As we saw in the section on subject pronouns (B.2, page 37), both
people and things have gender in French. This means that all nouns
in French are either masculine or feminine. In English, people have
gender, but things do not. So we refer to a man as he, awoman
as she, but a book as it. In French, however, a book (un livre) is
masculine, so the appropriate pronoun for both a man and a book
is il (he = (masculine) it).
To English speakers, using he and she for people is so natural that
we don’t think about it, and if someone refers to a man as she, it
44 Chapter 1 Bonjour! Çava?