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Pluperfect tense
The pluperfect tense is essentially the equivalent of English I had taken, he had arrived, they had wanted etc. It is used to refer to an extra "degree of pastness" compared to other past tenses used alongside it. Or in other words, it typically refers to a "past in the past". For example, in the following sentence:
the pluperfect I had eaten refers to a time frame before that of the action of he arrived.
Forming the pluperfect in French
Forming the pluperfect is fairly straightforward in French provided you know the perfect tense, plus the imperfect tense of at least the verbs avoir and être.
The pluperfect tense is then formed as for the perfect tense, but using the imperfect tense of avoir/être as appropriate (i.e. of the auxiliary verb). Here are some examples of some French verbs in the perfect vs pluperfect tenses:
| Perfect tense | Pluperfect tense |
|---|---|
| j'ai mangé I ate, I have eaten |
j'avais mangé I had eaten |
| tu as regardé you (have) looked at, watched |
tu avais regardé you had looked at/watched |
| il a attendu he (has) waited |
il avait attendu he had waited |
| elle est arrivée she (has) arrived |
elle était arrivée she had arrived |
When to use the pluperfect
The French pluperfect tense is largely used in cases where you'd use had -ed or had -en in English. Typically, it therefore expresses an action that happened before the main past action or time frame which itself is expressed either in the perfect or imperfect tense in French, or referred to via a word such as hier, la semaine dernière etc. For example:
I'd already eaten when she arrived
je ne l'avais jamais vue avant hier
I'd never seen her before yesterday
je n'avais jamais fait de ski avant l'hiver dernier
I'd never skied before last winter
There are some cases, however, where French uses a pluperfect and English uses a simple past. An important difference between French and English is that in French, the action between the pluperfect tense and "now" can be something that is observed or implied. For example:
you promised to help me!
(2) tu m'avais dit/promis qu'elle ne viendrait pas!
you told/promised me she wouldn't come!
(3) elle m'avait assuré qu'elle savait le faire
she assured me that she knew how to do it
In these cases, the pluperfect expresses a past action as a background to another event that isn't actually mentioned. So for example, in (1) this might be said when it is realised that the person in question hasn't helped; (2) might be said when the rogue person in question has just arrived; (3) might be uttered at the moment when the person in question has just messed up the task that they claimed to know how to do.
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