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Tense guide
Passé antérieur (Past Perfect)

Language: French
Tense:
Person:

Introduction

This tense describes a past action that happened immediately before another past action. It is a formal and literary tense, which means you will find it mostly in written stories and historical texts. You will almost never hear it in everyday conversations.

The most common use is to show the very first action in a quick sequence of two past events. This first action was completed just before the second one began. It almost always follows words like quand (when), lorsque (when), dès que (as soon as), or après que (after).

Dès qu'il eut fini son travail, il appela ses amis.
(As soon as he had finished his work, he called his friends.)
Lorsqu'elle eut reçu la lettre, elle se sentit soulagée.
(When she had received the letter, she felt relieved.)
Après que les invités furent partis, nous nettoyâmes la maison.
(After the guests had left, we cleaned the house.)
Aussitôt qu'il eut vu le danger, il cria.
(As soon as he had seen the danger, he shouted.)
Quand nous eûmes traversé le pont, nous vîmes le château.
(When we had crossed the bridge, we saw the castle.)

In very rare cases, this tense can describe a single action that was completed very quickly in the past. This usage is not common today, even in literature.

En un instant, elle eut décidé quoi faire.
(In an instant, she had decided what to do.)
Il eut vite compris son erreur.
(He had quickly understood his mistake.)

Remember, this tense is for writing, not speaking. In everyday modern French, people use simpler ways to express the same idea. For example, instead of "Dès qu'il eut fini.."., a person would say "Dès qu'il a fini..". or "Après avoir fini.."..

Further explanations

Conjugation patterns