The futur antérieur in french

06 oct. 2017 12:39 - language-swap

Niveau débutant

The “futur antérieur” is a tense pretty used in French. It can be used in the concordance of the tenses, in order to keep a logical time-line with a simple future.
It can also be used alone in a sentence in order to mark the precise ending of an action in the future.
The “futur antérieur” is easy to conjugate, since it is composed of the auxiliaries “être” (to be) and “avoir” to have conjugated in the simple future tense and the past participle of the verb concerned.
Let's see:


AVOIR AVOIR MANGER ETRE ETRE TOMBER
Aurai Aurai mangé Serai Serai tombé
Auras Auras mangé Seras Seras tombé
Aura Aura mangé Sera Sera tombé
Aurons Aurons mangé Serons Serons tombés
Aurez Aurez mangé Serez Serez tombés
Auront Auront mangé Seront Seront tombés


To know how to put the verbs in their past participle form, you can check the lesson on it.
However here is some tips:
the verbs finishing in -é are the verbs of the first group (couper, coupé)
the verbs finishing in -i are the verbs finishing in -IR (franchir, franchi)
the verbs finishing in -u are the verbs finishing in -Re (attendre, attendu – entendre, entendu)
the verbs composed with the verb prendre finish in -is (prendre, pris – surprendre, supris – reprendre, repris)

/!\ Warning, remember that the past participle has to agree with the noun when used with the auxiliary “être” or when the direct object is put before the verb with the auxiliary “avoir”.
In order to know which auxiliary you should use, see the lesson on the choice of the auxiliaries “le choix des auxiliaires au passé composé”.