the passé antérieur in french

06 oct. 2017 12:40 - language-swap

Niveau confirmé

The “passé antérieur” is not really used in French. Indeed, it is mostly present in the concordance of tenses in order to keep a logical time-line. It is used to mark an action in the past that happened right before another action still in the past.
However it is pretty easy to conjugate since it is composed of the auxiliaries “être” (to be) and “avoir” (to have) in the passé simple and the past participle of the verb concerned.
Let's see:


AVOIR AVOIR MANGER ETRE ETRE TOMBER
Eus Eus mangé Fus Fus tombé
Eus Eus mangé Fus Fus tombé
Eut Eut mangé Fut Fut tombé
Eûmes Eûmes mangé Fûmes Fûmes tombés
Eûtes Eûtes mangé Fûtes Fûtes tombés
Eurent Eurent mangé Furent Furent 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”.