Grammar - Conditional Perfect
French: AQA A Level, topic 8.2.6
Conditional perfect
What is it ?
- It’s a tense used to say what would have happened.
- It is formed with the auxiliary verb (être or avoir) in the conditional tense and the past participle.
- When you use être as the auxiliary, 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’aurais dû voir le film
- I should have seen the film
- Elle serait partie sans lui dire au revoir si elle n’avait pas perdu ses clés
- She would have left without telling him/her good bye if she hadn’t lost her keys
- Il ne l’aurait pas apprecié
- He wouldn’t have appreciated it
Examples
- Nous aurions échoué
- We would have failed
- Tu aurais pu te poser la question
- You should have asked yourself the question
- Le cinéma n’aurait pas évolué si rapidement
- Cinema wouldn’t have evolved so quickly
- Ils seraient devenus célèbres
- They would have become famous