Make a cake! All about imperative verbs.
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Making a cake. Photo by lil miss priss/flickr.
Today we will meet the imperative form of English verbs, and learn how to bake a cake.
English verbs are difficult. There are so many verb forms, and so many irregular verbs. But let’s not worry about complicated verbs today. Let’s think about the simplest verb form of all – the imperative. The imperative is the form of the verb which we use when we want to tell someone to do something. Imagine a teacher talking to a class at school. “Stop talking. Open your books. Write your name and the date at the top of the page. Then start exercise number 1.”
‘Stop’, ‘open’, ‘write’ and ‘start’ are all imperative verbs. They give orders or instructions. The great thing about imperative verbs is that there is only one imperative form. You don’t have to worry about past tense or future tense, you don’t have to think “Am I talking to one person or to lots of people?” Imperative verbs do not change.
Sometimes, of course, imperative verbs are too direct and can sound impolite. So we can use words like “please” with imperative verbs – “Please stop talking. Please open your books.” Or we can use indirect ways of telling people what to do, such as “Perhaps you could give me your report tomorrow morning”.
However, there is one place where you will always find lots of imperative verbs – a recipe book. A recipe is a set of instructions about how to cook something. In English we always write recipes using imperative verbs. Here is my recipe for lemon cake. How many imperative verbs can you find?
- Put 175 grammes of self-raising flour, 125 grammes of sugar, 125 grammes of butter and one-and-a half teaspoons of baking powder into a bowl.
- Take two lemons. Grate the rind from the lemons and add it to the flour.
- Break two eggs into the mixture.
- Add three tablespoons of milk.
- Beat the mixture with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.
- Pour the mixture into a baking tray.
- Bake the cake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
- Take the cake out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool.
- Squeeze the lemons and add about 50 grammes of sugar to the juice.
- Put the juice into a pan and heat it until it boils.
- Prick the top of the cake with a fork.
- Pour the lemon juice over the cake.
- Serve the cake while it is still warm.
I counted 18 imperative verbs. How many did you find?
Here is something to practice. Write your favourite recipe in English, using only imperative verbs. Or write instructions on how to do something, like how to recharge your mobile phone. There is a quiz about instructions and imperative verbs on the Listen to English website, and there is also a vocabulary note with some words about cooking and baking which you may find useful.
Quiz - giving instructions with imperative verbs. : A drag and drop exercise.
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Comments (16)
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6 February 2010
tnks alot peter thamkful to you too much
11 January 2010
Hi Pete I love your podcast, help me to improve my english. Many thanks
11 January 2010
Hi Pete!
Hope you are ok. Thank you for the podcast.
It was interesting as the rest of them.
I'll follow this recipe and make the cake.
11 January 2010
Hi!!! Pete.. I´m practicing in order to present the "ielts test" and Fernando (a very good friend) told me about your website, thank you for your recordings, and I hope that the voice in the listening module could be as clear and easy to understand as yours!!!!
8 January 2010
@ Marner
I am old, very old!
8 January 2010
Hi Peter,
I hope you had very nice Christmas.
Thanx for keep being so nice.
Pere
Barcelona
Catalonia
7 January 2010
Happy New Year! and thank you very much for this recipe. It is very nice of you giving us the opportunity for learning the imperative verbs in a way so "sweet". :-)
7 January 2010
great
wooooooooooooow
i love it
thanks a lot :))
-:D6 January 2010
The podcast was nice and easy to understood as all the podcasts are. thank you, oh… almost forgot, happy new year and merry Christmas Peter, wish you all the best with your family !!! p.s. maybe it's not appropriate place and occasion to ask but I'm so interesting in that, that I afford and ask you now : how old are you Peter?
6 January 2010
I love it!
6 January 2010
it;s good
6 January 2010
I have learned a good recipte of cake!
Thank you for your postcast, it is an important tool to learn English.
Giorgio
5 January 2010
I have nearly run out of your podcast. I have thought you were bored or you have gone away with a young lady or you have won a lottery. but all of them are my assumptions. happily you are here. Welcome back Mr Peter..
ps. don't wait us for the next podcast!!!
5 January 2010
Happy new year! Thank you for your podcasts, they are wonderful and I've learned a lot of things from them.
5 January 2010
Happy New Year Peter!!! I'm sure that this cake has a delicious taste.
thanks for all your videos. Please Keep on making more :)
5 January 2010
Interesting podcast, in this vacation, at the end of the year, I was at home watching a programme, where the host prepared a semolina with almonds cake, covered with orange juice, hmmmmmmm see the link, http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Entretenimento/0,,GIM1183312-7822-APRENDA+A+FAZER+UM+DELICIOSO+BOLO+DE+SEMOLINA+COM+AMENDOAS,00.html, thank you for this helpful podcast.