The French perfect and pluperfect tensesUsing the perfect tense
The perfect tense describes an action in the past that has finished. The pluperfect is used to talk about actions far back in the past such as events that have happened.
The perfect tense is used to talk about something that happened in the past and is completely finished. For example:
J’ai regardé la télé. - I watched TV.
Nous avons joué au rugby. - We played rugby.
These are the key elements needed to form the perfect tense:
The subjectThe person or thing in the sentence that is doing the action. - je, tu, il, etc. or a name or a person or thing, eg Sophie/ma mère/mon livre.
The present tenseA verb that describes an action that is happening now or that happens regularly, eg I eat breakfast every day. of avoir or être – this is known as an auxiliary verb.
The past participleWords that express a completed action. They usually end in '-ed' in English, eg watched, danced, visited. - mangé (ate), fini (finished), attendu (waited), etc.
Use time phrases to give more detail about when the action happened. For example:
As-tu fait tes devoirs hier ? - Did you do your homework yesterday?
Ils sont allés en France l’année dernière. - They went to France last year.
