8.3.6

Grammar - Pluperfect

Test yourself

Pluperfect

What is it ?

  • It’s a tense used to say what had happened.
  • It is formed with the auxiliary verb (être or avoir) in the imperfect tense and the past participle.
  • When you use être as the auxiliary, it means that the past participle must agree in gender and number with the subject.
    • That means adding an extra E for the feminine, S for the plural and ES for the feminine plural.

Examples

  • J’avais déjà vu ce film
    • 🡪 I had already seen that/this film
  • Nous étions allés le voir au cinéma du quartier
    • 🡪 we had been to see it at our local/neighbourhood cinema/at the cinema of the area
  • Il ne l’avait pas aimé
    • 🡪 he hadn’t liked it
  • Il avait dit qu’il était vieux-jeu
    • 🡪 he said it was out of date/out-dated/old-fashioned
  • Elles étaient sorties à 19 heures
    • 🡪 they had gone out at 7pm

Jump to other topics

1The Changing Nature of Family

2The 'cyber-society'

3The Place of Voluntary Work

4Diverse Society

5The Marginalised

6How Criminals Are Treated

7A Culture Proud of its Heritage

8Cinema: the 7th Art Form

9Demonstrations, strikes – who holds the power?

10Politics & Immigration

11Conjugation & Use of Tenses

11.1Present Tense

11.2Perfect Tense

11.3Imperfect Tense

11.4Future Tense

11.5Conditional Tense

11.6Future Perfect Tense

11.7Conditional Perfect Tense

11.8Pluperfect Tense

12Extra Grammar

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