The French past anterior tense (le passé antérieur) is a literary tense similar and is grammatically equivalent to the pluperfect tense (plus-que-parfait). The difference is that the past anterior is used in literature and formal writing while the pluperfect is used in modern writing and spoken French. It’s a good idea to be able to recognize the passé antérieur.
French Past Anterior Tense
The past anterior and pluperfect have the same translation in English: I had + past participle of verb.
The difference between them is that the auxiliary verb, avoir (to have) or être (to be) depending on the verb, is written in the simple past (passé simple) for the past anterior and imperfect for the pluperfect.
J’eus parlé – I had spoken (past anterior)
J’avais parlé – I had spoken (pluperfect or plus-que-parfait)
Je fus allé(e) – I had gone (past anterior)
J’étais allé(e) – I had gone (pluperfect or plus-que-parfait)
The past anterior often follows conjunctions of time such aussitôt que (as soon as), dès que (once), quand and lorsque (when).
Example sentence written in past anterior and simple past
Quand il eut fini ses devoirs, il regarda la télévision. When he had finished his home work, he watched TV.
Same sentence using pluperfect and passé composé.
Quand il avait fini ses devoirs, il a regardé la télévision.
Forming the past anterior
The past anterior is a compound verb form. This means that it has two parts: The auxiliary verb in the passé simple and past participle. The following table shows how to form the past anterior for a parler (to speak), aller (to go) and and se lever (to get up).
| j’eus parlé | je fus allé(e) | je me fus levé(e) |
| tu eus parlé | tu fus allé(e) | tu te fus levé(e) |
| il, elle eut parlé | il, elle fut allé(e) | il, elle se fut levé(e) |
| nous eûmes parlé | nous fûmes allé(e)s | nous nous fûmes levé(e)s |
| vous eûtes parlé | vous fûtes allé(e)(s) | vous vous fûtes levé(e)(s) |
| ils, elles eurent parlé | ils, elles furent allé(e)s | ils, elles se furent levé(e)s |
French verb tenses and moods
- Present Tense
- Future tense
- Conditional tense
- Imperfect tense
- Pluperfect tense
- Passé composé – Compound past
- Simple past
- Imperative mood
- Subjunctive mood
Related lessons
- Verb tenses overview
- Verb conjugations overview
- Verb conjugation charts
- Explanation or regular verbs
- Irregular verbs overview
- 10 most common verbs
- 100 most common verbs
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