22.1 The Perfect Tenses
The perfect tenses refer to actions that have been completed before a given point in time.
The past perfect
allows us to discuss an action completed before some point in the past.
The future perfect
allows us to discuss an action completed before some point in the future.
The conditional perfect
allows us to discuss an action that would have been completed under different past circumstances.
As we saw in Lesson 14, French uses the passé composé in contexts where English may use either the simple past or the present perfect. There is no separate French tense that corresponds exactly to the English present perfect.
22.2 Formation of the Perfect Tenses
Good news, VerbMasters! The perfect tenses use the same basic structure as the passé composé.
They are made up of two parts:
- a conjugated form of avoir or être as the helping verb, and
- the past participle of the action verb.
The helping verb tells us when the action occurs, while the past participle tells us what the action is.
The same auxiliary rules from the passé composé still apply: most verbs use avoir, while verbs from the House of Être and all reflexive verbs use être. With non-reflexive House of Être verbs, the past participle agrees with the subject in gender and number.
22.3 Past Perfect
The past perfect tense (also known as the pluperfect tense) is used to talk about already-completed actions from a past perspective.
The Pluperfect
The past perfect indicates an action completed before another past action.
To create this tense, we pair the past participle of a verb with avoir (or être, when appropriate) in the imperfect tense:
Example:
J'avais déjà mangé les prunes quand j'ai trouvé votre message.
I had already eaten the plums when I found your message.
22.4 Future Perfect
The Future Perfect
The future perfect indicates actions that will be completed by a certain future point.
To create this tense, we pair the past participle of a verb with avoir or être in the future tense:
Example:
Nous aurons rendu tous nos devoirs avant la date de l'examen final.
We will have turned in all of our assignments before the date of the final exam.
22.5 Conditional Perfect
The Conditional Perfect
The conditional perfect describes actions that would have been completed under different past circumstances.
To create this tense, we pair the past participle of a verb with avoir or être in the conditional:
Past Hypothetical Situations
The conditional perfect follows the same pattern, but it imagines how a past situation could have turned out differently.
Just as you do not use the simple conditional directly after si, you do not use the conditional perfect after si. Use the plus-que-parfait to state the imagined past condition, and the conditional perfect to describe the result that would have followed.
si + plus-que-parfait → conditionnel passé
Elle serait arrivée à l'heure si elle n'avait pas perdu trente minutes à parler avec les voisins.
She would have arrived on time if she hadn't spent thirty minutes talking with the neighbors.
Here, si elle n'avait pas perdu trente minutes states the imagined past condition. Elle serait arrivée à l'heure describes the result that would have followed.
In reality, she did lose thirty minutes, so she did not arrive on time.
Practice Time!
Master these verb conjugations from Lesson 22