Le public littéraire attendait depuis des années la nouvelle poésie de Tex quand il a enfin retrouvé son inspiration. Not all instances of had + past participle in English are translated into plus-que-parfait in French.įor example, in French depuis is usually used with the imperfect ( not the pluperfect) and 'had just done something' is generally translated by venir de in the imparfait. She adored the innocent poems that Tex had written during his youth. But he changed his mind when he read the poems to Tammy.Įlle a adoré les poèmes innocents que Tex avait écrits pendant sa jeunesse. Mais il a changé d'avis quand il a lu les poèmes à Tammy.Ī few years later, he had abandoned all hope of literary fame.
Quelques années plus tard, il avait abandonné tout espoir de gloire littéraire. In affirmative sentences in French, it is often, but not always, accompanied by the adverb déjà (already).Ī l'âge de sept ans, Tex avait déjà rédigé dix poèmes.Īt the age of seven, Tex had already composed ten poems. In English the plus-que-parfait is indicated by had + past participle. In other words, the action in the plus-que-parfait is prior to another past action or moment. In past narration, the plus-que-parfait is used to express an action which precedes another past action or moment. Je n'avais pas mangé (I had not eaten), Je n'étais pas allé (I had not gone), etc. pas around the conjugated verb, which in this case is the auxiliary: The negation is formed in the usual manner by placing ne. Ils / elles étaient allé(e)s, they had gone Il, elle / on était allé(e), he, she (it) / one had gone Ils / elles avaient mangé, they had eaten Il, elle / on avait mangé, he, she (it) / one had eaten Plus-que-parfait = auxiliary in the imparfait + past participle of verb The choice of auxiliary, être or avoir, is the same as for the passé composé (the Alamo of être applies). Quand il était jeune il avait les cheveux longs.The pluperfect ( le plus-que-parfait) is formed with the auxiliary in the imparfait followed by the past participle of the verb. He took an aspirin because he had a headache. Il a pris un cachet d’aspirine parce qu’il avait mal à la tête. A light breeze was blowing, Julie was feeling good. Une brise légère soufflait, Julie se sentait bien.Īll was quiet. The sentence has a verb that describes (as opposed to listing an action or actions).ĭescribing the weather, the time and the date He always ate (used to eat) at McDonald’s when he was a student. Il mangeait toujours à Mcdonald’s quand il était étudiant. The English verb is or is the equivalent of used to + infinitive, with the same meaning in both languages. She was driving slowly because it was raining. The English verb is or could be was/were + -ing, without changing the meaning.Įlle conduisait prudemment parce qu’il pleuvait. If you were on stage, the imparfait would not be the tense of the actors but rather of the stage manager who oversaw the set, the lighting, and everything that prepared the stage for the actors to act. Think of the imparfait as the past tense of calm, beauty, and thought: it paints portraits and scenes, thoughts and memories it does not busy itself with actions. The only verb for which the stem for the imparfait is not obtained in that way is the verb être (to be). The endings of the conjugated forms of the verb are as follows: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient. This is true for both regular and irregular verbs. The stem is obtained by dropping the -ons ending of the nous form of the present tense of the verb. Le plus-que-parfait is a simple tense in the past the conjugated verb consists of a stem and an ending.