French Plus-que-parfait (Pluperfect): Formation and Uses

The plus-que-parfait is the "had done" tense: the past before the past. You are already telling a story in the past and need to reach further back.

Quand il est arrivé, elle était déjà partie. - When he arrived, she had already left.

It is the passé composé with the auxiliary moved into the imperfect. Nothing else changes.

How to form it

Take the imperfect of avoir or être and add the past participle.

Manger takes avoir:

Partir takes être, so the participle agrees with the subject:

The endings are the imperfect endings you already know: -ais, -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient.

Avoir or être: the passé composé's choice

There is no new list. A verb that takes être in the passé composé takes it here too: the verbs of movement and change of state, and every reflexive verb.

Watch the elision with a reflexive: je me suis levé becomes je m'étais levé, because étais starts with a vowel.

Agreement: the same rules

The agreement rules carry over from the passé composé unchanged.

With être, the participle agrees with the subject:

• Elle était partie. - She had left.
• Ils étaient arrivés. - They had arrived.
• Nous nous étions levés tôt. - We had got up early.

With avoir, the participle agrees only with a direct object placed before the verb:

The first sentence means She had written a letter. The second, the letter she had written; the third, I had seen them.

Use 1: the earlier of two past events

When two things happened in the past, the one that came first goes in the plus-que-parfait. The later one stays in the passé composé or the imperfect.

• Quand je suis arrivé à la gare, le train était déjà parti. - When I got to the station, the train had already left.
• J'avais fini mon travail quand mes amis sont passés. - I had finished my work when my friends came round.
• Elle était fatiguée parce qu'elle n'avait pas dormi. - She was tired because she had not slept.

The tense changes the story. Compare:

Déjà (already) and ne... jamais (never) sit naturally with this tense:

• Elle n'avait jamais vu la mer. - She had never seen the sea.

Use 2: reported speech

When you report in the past what someone said had happened, their passé composé normally becomes a plus-que-parfait, as English I have finished becomes he said he had finished.

The glosses: He said he had finished. She said she had arrived late. They said they had seen the film. The whole shift, present to imperfect and future to conditional too, is on reported speech.

Use 3: si j'avais su

After si, the plus-que-parfait imagines a past that did not happen. The result goes in the past conditional (aurais or serais + participle):

• Si j'avais su, je ne serais pas venu. - If I had known, I would not have come.
• Si tu m'avais écouté, tu n'aurais pas fait cette erreur. - If you had listened to me, you would not have made that mistake.

Si j'avais su is worth learning whole: it is the everyday French for had I known.

Si stays whole before j'. It shortens only before il and ils: S'il avait su, il serait venu. - If he had known, he would have come. All three si patterns are on si clauses.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say what you had already done before breakfast today, with j'avais déjà.
2. Report three things a friend said yesterday, with il a dit que.
3. Then read si clauses, where the plus-que-parfait opens the third type.