When you want to talk about something that happened in the past, you have to make sure you’re using the correct tense: plus-que-parfait with the passé composé or l’imparfait. These are french compound tenses and they can be tricky to master, so today we’ll explore the tenses bit by bit and give examples and grammar tips so you can master this topic.
When to use French imparfait
Let’s just remember how to use the imparfait tense:
It’s used to describe states and actions that were ongoing or repeated in the past. If you wanted to translate the tense, it would be the simple past tense. It is mostly used to tell stories and report on past actions.
A tip we can give you to conjugate the imperfect is to add –ais, –ais, –ait, –ions, –iez, and –aient at the root of the present tense of the verb you want to use.
We use it to tell something that happened in the past:
Chaque jour, je rendais visite à ma grand-mère.
I visited my grandma every day.
When we tell something from our childhood:
Quand j’étais petit, je parlais peu et j’aimais écouter les histoires que me racontait mon grand-père.
When I was young, I talked less and I loved listening to the stories my grandfather told me.
When we’re being polite:
Nous souhaitions savoir si …
We wish to know if…
When to Use the passé composé in French
Some might argue that this is the most important and used tense in French. You’d use it when you’re talking about actions that were completed in the past and put an emphasis on the consequences and results in the present.
Let’s remember that this tense is used with an auxiliary and a past participle.
Il est parti en Italie où il a acheté une maison.
He went to Italy where he bought a house.
When you use this tense, you’ll have to choose between the auxiliary verb: être or avoir.
You need to use être with reflexive verbs (se lever, se laver, s’habiller…) and with the fourteen verbs that are used to express a movement or a change of state (entrer/sortir, monter/descendre, passer/rester…)
So, when it comes to avoir, you’ll need to use it with all the other verbs.
Il a bien dormi cette nuit.
He slept well last night.
When to use plus- que- parfait
This tense is used with auxiliary être or avoir in the imparfait tense or in the past participle of the verb, you could translate it to the past perfect tense in English. It has to be used with this auxiliary the same way you’d use it when you’re using the passé composé tense.
You’d use this tense when you’re talking about something that happened before an action in the past, like in an anecdote to give the listener background information on the situation that happened before the main story.
Elle a acheté la veste qu’elle avait vue dans la vitrine.
She bought the jacket she had seen in the window.
If you’re telling a story, you’d tell it in chronological order. So, you’d have to use the passé composé and l’imparfait.
J’ai acheté de bons produits au marché où il y avait beacoup de monde. Ensuite, j’ai préparé le repas avec soin.
I bought good products at the market where there were a lot of people. Then I carefully made the meal.
So, you might have realized that the tense plus-que-parfait has the same characteristics as the passé composé, for example, it has the same formation that the past participle, you use the same auxiliaries (être or avoir), and has the same rules of the agreement.
Learn more about the Passé Composé vs Imparfait : The Biggest Challenge for French Learners
Feel free to use these tenses
Now that you know how to use all of these tenses, how to build sentences with them, and the similarities they have between them, this is your chance to put your knowledge to the test, to go out and practice, but if you want to put your knowledge to the test right now, do it.