Directions & Getting Around

A first taste of the imperative for directions

These direction-giving commands are examples of the imperative mood, formed here from the vous-conjugation with the pronoun simply dropped: (vous) tournez → Tournez !. This actually matches an instinct English already has — English commands also drop the subject pronoun ('Turn left!', not 'You turn left!') — so the basic idea of a subject-less command sentence is familiar; French just builds it by trimming the pronoun off an existing conjugated form rather than using the plain verb the way English does. Full imperative rules for all persons come in a later lesson — for now, just recognize and use these as fixed direction phrases.