When should I use plus-que-parfait?
The plus-que-parfait is used when the speaker needs to position one action with respect to another. Frequently its use will be signaled by adverbs (such as déjà) which can heighten the sense of opposition between actions: Quand je suis rentré, j’avais déjà appris la mauvaise nouvelle.
What is the difference between avoir and être in passé composé?
Avoir (to have) and être (to be) are both auxiliary verbs used in the perfect tense in French. The majority of words take avoir in the passé composé, e.g. ‘I played’ becomes j’ai joué. All reflexive verbs in French take être – these are verbs that you do to yourself (e.g. je me suis habillé).
Why do we use avoir and être in passé composé?
The passé composé corresponds mostly to the English simple past or the present perfect. The passé composé talks about specific actions that were completed in the past. We conjugate the passé composé using the auxiliary verbs avoir or être followed by the past participle (le participe passé) of the verb.
How do you write plus-que-parfait?
The plus‐que‐parfait is the compound form of the imperfect and is formed by using the imperfect of the appropriate helping verb ( avoir or être) + the past participle of the verb. Its English equivalent is “had” + past participle: J’avais mal à l’estomac parce que j’avais trop mangé.
What is the use of plus-que-parfait in French?
A Past Action That Preceded Another Past Action The French past perfect, or pluperfect—known in French as le plus-que-parfait—is used to indicate an action in the past that occurred before another action in the past. The latter use can be either mentioned in the same sentence or implied.
Does plus-que-parfait agree?
In the case of reflexive verbs (which always take être as their auxiliary in the plus-que-parfait), the participle generally agrees with the subject.
Does voir use être?
For instance, “I see” is je vois and “we will see” is nous verrons. Practicing these in short sentences will help you learn them much faster. The present participle of voir is voyant. To form the passé composé of voir, you will need the auxiliary verb avoir and the past participle vu….Imperative.
| Imperative | |
|---|---|
| (vous) | voyez |
How to conjugate the plus que parfait in French?
How to conjugate the plus-que-parfait in French. To conjugate the plus-que-parfait we use the imperfect forms of avoir and être as auxiliary verbs, followed by the participe passé (past participle) of the main verb. In negative sentences, the past participle comes after the second part of the negation (pas).
When to use the auxiliary etre in plus que parfait?
The plus-que-parfait is made up of an auxiliary (être or avoir) conjugated in the imparfait and the past participle of a verb. When using the auxiliary être, the past participle always agrees in gender and number with the subject of the sentence.
Can you use the past tense in Passe Compose?
(Because of the concordance des temps, it can be used with any past tense. The other tense used will depend of the context of the action.) Unlike the Passé Composé, you can’t use it “alone” (without talking about two seperate actions) or if you do, you’ll meant something else happened and you’ll have to explain it somehow.
When does the participe Passe have to agree with the subject?
For some verbs, the participe passé has to agree in gender and number with either the subject or the object of the sentence. This agreement is necessary in the following cases: When a verb takes être as a help verb, the participle agrees in gender and number with the subject. Il était all é à l’école de musique. He had gone to music school.