Real stories are rarely told in perfect order. You start with the event that matters (I finally bought that phone), then you jump back to explain (you'd told me about it last week). English often lets you skip the signal: I bought the phone you told me about is perfectly natural, even though the telling came first. French is stricter. When a past event happened before another past event, careful French marks it with the plus-que-parfait, the had done tense: J'ai acheté le téléphone dont tu m'avais parlé la semaine dernière. That one tense lets a listener rebuild the real order of events no matter what order you tell them in. It shows up in stories, news reports (the fire had started in a truck), explanations (I was tired because I had slept badly) and, in the next lesson, in reported speech. You met it in Grade 10; here you learn to use it with confidence inside longer texts, with negation, pronouns and agreement.
| Person | finir (avoir) | arriver (être) | se lever (pronominal, être) |
|---|---|---|---|
| je / j' | j'avais fini | j'étais arrivé(e) | je m'étais levé(e) |
| tu | tu avais fini | tu étais arrivé(e) | tu t'étais levé(e) |
| il / elle / on | il avait fini | il était arrivé · elle était arrivée | il s'était levé · elle s'était levée |
| nous | nous avions fini | nous étions arrivé(e)s | nous nous étions levé(e)s |
| vous | vous aviez fini | vous étiez arrivé(e)(s) | vous vous étiez levé(e)(s) |
| ils / elles | ils avaient fini | ils étaient arrivés · elles étaient arrivées | ils s'étaient levés · elles s'étaient levées |
Three steps, and the same rules as the passé composé
1. Choose the auxiliary exactly as for the passé composé: être for the movement and change-of-state verbs (aller, venir, arriver, partir, naître, mourir, rester, tomber, devenir…) and for every pronominal verb; avoir for the rest. 2. Put that auxiliary in the imparfait: avais, avait, avions… or étais, était, étions…. 3. Add the past participle with the same agreement rules: with être it agrees with the subject (elle était partie); with avoir it agrees only with a direct object placed before it (les photos qu'il avait prises). Pronominal verbs usually agree with the subject, but not when the reflexive pronoun is an indirect object: Elle s'était lavé les mains (no e, because les mains is the direct object and comes after).
ATold in order: passé composé chain
- J'ai perdu mes clés. Ensuite, je suis arrivé chez moi. → I lost my keys. Then I got home.
- Elle a fini le rapport, puis elle l'a envoyé. → She finished the report, then sent it.
- Le film a commencé. Nous sommes arrivés dix minutes plus tard. → The film started. We arrived ten minutes later.
BTold out of order: plus-que-parfait for the earlier event
- Quand je suis arrivé chez moi, j'avais perdu mes clés. → When I got home, I had lost my keys.
- Elle a envoyé le rapport qu'elle avait fini la veille. → She sent the report she had finished the day before.
- Quand nous sommes arrivés, le film avait déjà commencé. → When we arrived, the film had already started.
Do not overuse it
If you tell events in the order they happened, the passé composé is enough: Je me suis levée, j'ai mangé et je suis partie. (I got up, ate and left.) Writing Je m'étais levée, j'avais mangé et j'étais partie for that simple sequence makes the listener wait for a later past event that never comes. The plus-que-parfait needs a reference point in the past that it comes before, either stated in the sentence (quand je suis arrivé) or clear from the story.
Where English hides the had
| Natural English | Careful French | Why the plus-que-parfait |
|---|---|---|
| I bought the product you told me about the other day. | J'ai acheté le produit dont tu m'avais parlé l'autre jour. | The telling came before the buying. |
| The technician replied that she already solved the problem. | La technicienne a répondu qu'elle avait déjà résolu le problème. | She solved it before she replied. |
| We missed the bus because we left late. | Nous avons raté l'autobus parce que nous étions partis en retard. | Leaving late came before missing the bus. |
| I recognized him: I saw him on TV the year before. | Je l'ai reconnu : je l'avais vu à la télé l'année d'avant. | Seeing him on TV came before recognizing him. |
Canadian usage
In Canada the usual word for a city bus is l'autobus (often just le bus in conversation), and an email is un courriel. In France you will more often hear le bus and un mail or un e-mail. The tenses work the same way everywhere, although in relaxed speech on both sides of the Atlantic people sometimes use the passé composé where careful French would use the plus-que-parfait. In writing, mark the earlier event.
| Pattern | Example | English |
|---|---|---|
| auxiliary + short adverb + participle | Le film avait déjà commencé. | The film had already started. |
| ne + auxiliary + jamais + participle | Je n'étais jamais allée à Québec. | I had never been to Québec City. |
| ne + auxiliary + pas encore + participle | Elle n'avait pas encore fini. | She hadn't finished yet. |
| object pronoun + auxiliary | Je l'avais déjà lu. | I had already read it. |
| ne + pronoun + auxiliary + pas | Nous ne l'avions pas vue. | We hadn't seen her. |
| y / en + auxiliary | Ils y étaient déjà allés. · J'en avais acheté trois. | They had already gone there. · I had bought three (of them). |
A pronoun in front can trigger agreement
With avoir, the participle agrees with a direct object that comes before it, and object pronouns always come before. Où sont les clés ? Je les avais laissées sur la table. (Where are the keys? I had left them on the table.) Nous ne l'avions pas vue. (l' = her, feminine.) La lettre qu'il avait écrite. (que refers back to la lettre.) En does not trigger agreement: Des pommes ? J'en avais acheté trois.
Loading interactive…
In context: a sample news brief
Hier soir, un incendie a détruit un entrepôt dans un village du nord de l'Ontario. Selon les pompiers, le feu avait commencé vers 22 h dans un camion stationné près du bâtiment. Heureusement, les employés étaient déjà rentrés chez eux. Le propriétaire a déclaré qu'il avait installé de nouveaux détecteurs de fumée le mois précédent.
Translation: Last night, a fire destroyed a warehouse in a northern Ontario village. According to the firefighters, the fire had started around 10 p.m. in a truck parked near the building. Fortunately, the employees had already gone home. The owner stated that he had installed new smoke detectors the month before. The headline event is in the passé composé (a détruit). Everything that happened earlier is in the plus-que-parfait: the start of the fire, the employees going home, the installation of the detectors. This is the classic shape of a news report: main event first, then a step back to explain it.
- A repeated sequence in the past (plus-que-parfait + imparfait). Quand il avait fini ses devoirs, il sortait jouer. → Whenever he had finished his homework, he would go out to play.
- A regret (preview of Unit 3). Si j'avais su, je serais venu plus tôt ! → If I had known, I would have come earlier!
- Reported speech (next lesson). « J'ai fini. » → Elle a dit qu'elle avait fini. → She said she had finished.
Listening: avais, ai or aurais?
Three forms of avoir + participle can sound alike in fast speech. J'ai fini is the passé composé (I finished). J'avais fini is the plus-que-parfait (I had finished): listen for the extra syllable -vais. J'aurais fini is the conditionnel passé (I would have finished), which you will study in Unit 3: listen for the r. With il, the forms are clearly different: il a, il avait, il aurait.