The past perfect tense is used to express accomplished facts, generally brief and of a fixed duration, whose action is situated before another action which is itself expressed in the simple past tense. It is generally found in subordinate propositions after a conjunction of time, such as quand, lorsque, aussitôt que, après que...
Quand les joueurs eurent terminé le match, ils prirent une boisson.
It can also be used in a sentence by itself to express a brief action in the past. It is then found accompanied by adverbs such as bientôt, vite, enfin...
Les joueurs se furent rapidement ressaisis.
To be able to form the past perfect tense well, one must know how to combine the auxiliaries "avoir" and "être" in the simple past tense and know how to form the past participle. The main difficulties of the past perfect tense come from the agreements with the past participle and its weak oral use.
Here is an example of a verb conjugated in the past perfect tense with auxiliaries avoir and être :
Sujet | Auxiliary (avoir) | Past participle (finir) |
---|---|---|
J' | eus | fini |
Tu | eus | fini |
Il | eut | fini |
Nous | eûmes | fini |
Vous | eûtes | fini |
Ils | eurent | fini |
Sujet | Auxiliary (être) | Past participle (venir) |
---|---|---|
Je | fus | venu |
Tu | fus | venu |
Il | fut | venu |
Nous | fûmes | venus |
Vous | fûtes | venus |
Ils | furent | venus |