Intermediate French Grammar (B1-B2): What Breaks the Plateau

This page picks up where the French grammar cheatsheet (A1-B1) leaves off. At B1-B2 the question changes from "do I know the form" to "do I deploy the right form fast enough to keep the conversation going." The biggest single jump from A2 to B2 in French is in past-tense fluency, the subjunctive, and the agreement rules that French schoolchildren get drilled on for years.

What "B1-B2" means in practice (see the CEFR explainer for the full breakdown): you can hold the conversation on a bus, deal with most adult situations, get the gist of the news, write a coherent email, follow a film with subtitles in French. Your remaining errors are tense choice and agreement. This page is the structure to clear them.

The full past-tense system

By B2 you should deploy four past tenses without hesitation.

Passé composé

Closed, completed actions in the past. The standard spoken past tense.

• Hier, je suis allé au cinéma. (Yesterday I went to the cinema.)
• J'ai mangé une pizza. (I ate a pizza.)
• Il est né en 1990. (He was born in 1990.)

The passé composé is the default narrative tense for sequences of events in modern spoken and most written French. It uses an auxiliary (être or avoir) plus the past participle.

Imparfait

Ongoing background, repeated past habits, descriptions of states.

• Quand j'étais petit, je jouais au football. (When I was little, I used to play football.) - habit.
• Il faisait nuit et il pleuvait. (It was night and it was raining.) - description.
• J'étais fatigué. (I was tired.) - state.

The imparfait sets the scene; the passé composé advances the action. A native French narration mixes them constantly: "Je regardais la télé (imparfait) quand le téléphone a sonné (passé composé)" - I was watching TV when the phone rang. The choice between the two has its own page: passé composé vs imparfait.

Plus-que-parfait

The past of the past. Action that happened before another past action.

• Quand je suis arrivé, ils avaient déjà mangé. (When I arrived, they had already eaten.)
• Il m'a dit qu'il avait vu le film. (He told me he had seen the film.)

Formed with the imparfait of the auxiliary (avait, étais) + past participle. Tracks closely with the English pluperfect; the French pluperfect page has the full conjugation.

Passé simple (literary)

A literary tense used in narrative prose, history writing, and journalism. Almost never used in speech. C1+ reading territory; recognise it in writing, do not produce it in conversation.

• Il alla à Paris. (He went to Paris.) - passé simple, literary equivalent of "il est allé à Paris."
• Elle fut surprise. (She was surprised.)

Auxiliary choice, in detail

The être auxiliary is required for:

1. The classic intransitive movement and state-change verbs (the DR MRS VANDERTRAMPP mnemonic): devenir, revenir, monter, rester, sortir, venir, aller, naître, descendre, entrer, retourner, tomber, rentrer, arriver, mourir, partir, passer.
2. All reflexive verbs: se laver, se réveiller, se promener, se souvenir.

The avoir auxiliary is required for almost everything else. The full list, and the verbs that switch auxiliary when they take an object (j'ai sorti la poubelle vs je suis sorti), is on avoir vs être in the passé composé.

Past participle agreement

The rules differ based on auxiliary.

With être: past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.

• Elle est allée. (She went.)
• Ils sont arrivés. (They arrived.)
• Nous nous sommes levés. (We got up.) - reflexive.

With avoir: past participle is normally invariable, except when a direct object precedes the verb. Then it agrees with that preceding direct object.

• J'ai vu Marie. (I saw Marie.) - DO follows verb, no agreement.
• La fille que j'ai vue. (The girl I saw.) - DO ("que" referring to la fille) precedes, agreement.
• Je l'ai vue. (I saw her.) - DO pronoun precedes, agreement.

This rule (the COD agreement) is what French schoolchildren get drilled on for a decade. Native speakers regularly get it wrong in writing. As a learner, getting it right marks you as someone who has actually studied the language carefully.

The subjunctive, in full

French uses the subjunctive less than Spanish but more than English. Triggers cluster around necessity, doubt, emotion, will, possibility, and specific conjunctions.

Present subjunctive

Formation rule: take the third-person plural present indicative stem and add subjunctive endings. (ils parlent -> que je parle; nous and vous borrow the imparfait forms, que nous parlions.) Every form, regular and irregular, is on the present subjunctive formation page. The main exceptions: être, avoir, aller, faire, savoir, vouloir, pouvoir, falloir and valoir have irregular subjunctive stems.

Triggers to memorise:

• Necessity: il faut que, il est nécessaire que, il est important que.
• Will: vouloir que, exiger que, ordonner que, demander que (in some senses).
• Emotion: être content que, regretter que, avoir peur que, être surpris que.
• Doubt: douter que, ne pas penser que, ne pas croire que.
• Possibility: il est possible que, il se peut que.
• Conjunctions: avant que, jusqu'à ce que, pour que, afin que, bien que, quoique, sans que, à moins que, pourvu que, à condition que.

Examples:

• Il faut que je parte. (I have to leave.)
• Je veux que tu viennes. (I want you to come.)
• Bien qu'il pleuve, je sortirai. (Although it is raining, I will go out.)
• Avant que tu partes, dis-moi au revoir. (Before you leave, say goodbye.)

Passé du subjonctif

Used when the subjunctive trigger refers to a completed action. Formed with the present subjunctive of avoir or être + past participle.

• Je suis content que tu sois venu. (I am glad you have come.)
• Bien qu'il ait plu, nous sommes sortis. (Although it had rained, we went out.)

Imparfait du subjonctif and plus-que-parfait du subjonctif

These exist but are strictly literary. In modern French, the present and past subjunctive cover the time references that classical French split across four forms. Recognise these forms in older texts; do not produce them in conversation or modern writing.

The conditional, in full

The conditional has three main uses:

Hypothetical

• Si j'avais le temps, je viendrais. (If I had time, I would come.)

Politeness

• Je voudrais un café. (I would like a coffee.) - much more polite than "je veux."
• Pourriez-vous m'aider ? (Could you help me?) - polite request.

Reported information

The conditional is the standard "journalistic" tense in French for reporting information that the journalist cannot verify:

• Le président aurait démissionné. (The president has allegedly resigned.)
• Selon certaines sources, il y aurait eu vingt morts. (According to sources, there were apparently twenty dead.)

This use is much more frequent in French journalism than the English "alleged" or "reportedly" equivalents. C1 readers of French news need to recognise it.

Conditionnel passé

Used for unrealised past possibilities and regret.

• Si j'avais su, je serais venu. (If I had known, I would have come.)
• J'aurais dû étudier plus. (I should have studied more.)
• Tu aurais pu me prévenir. (You could have warned me.)

Si conditional structures

Four structures by tense pair (memorise the chart; the French si clauses page drills each one). The trap: never use the conditional in the "si" clause itself.

The rule: the further from reality, the further back the si-clause tense.

Object pronoun order, in full

When multiple object pronouns appear together, the order is fixed:

me / te / nous / vous -> le / la / les -> lui / leur -> y -> en

• Je te le donne. (I give it to you.)
• Il le lui a dit. (He told it to him.)
• Donne-le-moi. (Give it to me.) - imperative reverses the order, see below.
• Il y en a trois. (There are three of them.)

Imperative pronoun order

In the affirmative imperative, object pronouns follow the verb with hyphens, and the order changes:

verb -> direct object -> indirect object -> y -> en

• Donne-le-moi. (Give it to me.) - "me" becomes "moi" after the verb.
• Parle-lui. (Speak to him.)
• Allons-y. (Let's go.)

In the negative imperative, the pronouns return to their normal pre-verb position.

• Ne me le donne pas. (Do not give it to me.)

Relative pronouns, in full

The trap: English drops relative pronouns frequently; French does not (more on the French relative pronouns page). "The book I read" must be "le livre que j'ai lu" in French. Dropping the que is ungrammatical.

Reported speech (discours indirect)

Tenses shift back when reporting what someone said in the past.

Time and place markers also shift: aujourd'hui -> ce jour-là, demain -> le lendemain, hier -> la veille, ici -> là, ce -> ce... là.

Mood preservation: if the original used subjunctive, the reported version keeps the subjunctive. The full tense-shift chart is on the French reported speech page.

What to drill at B1-B2

1. Passé composé vs imparfait until you no longer think about which one to use in real-time narration.
2. Auxiliary choice and past participle agreement, especially the COD agreement rule with avoir.
3. The subjunctive triggers, and the si-clause tense pairs (si + imparfait + conditional), which never take a subjunctive.
4. Object pronoun order in declarative and imperative forms.
5. Relative pronouns including dont, lequel, and the ce qui / ce que / ce dont set.

Once these five are solid, you are at the threshold of C1. The next page, advanced French grammar, picks up there.