Introduction to the passé antérieur (past anterior) in French
The passé antérieur, called the past anterior in English, is used to express an action that occurred before another action in the past. It is a compound tense that corresponds to the English past perfect tense. It is formed by combining the auxiliary verb avoir (to have) or être (to be) in the simple past tense with the past participle of the main verb. You don’t hear it much in spoken French and is mostly used in formal written French.
Passé antérieur = past tense of avoir or être + past participle of main verb
For example:
- Quand il eut fini son travail, il partit
- When he had finished his work, he left
Formation of the passé anterieur
So you need a past tense of avoir or être and the past participle. Below is explained how to get those
Past tense of avoir & être
| Person | Avoir | Être |
| Je | avais | étais |
| Tu | avais | étais |
| Il/Elle | avait | était |
| Nous | avions | étions |
| Vous | aviez | étiez |
| Ils/Elles | avaient | étaient |
Learn more on auxiliary verbs here
Forming the past participle
Forming the past participle (participe passé) is not that difficult. It is a kind of non-conjugated form of a verb. It’s very simple to make for most regular conjugating verbs. Just remove the last two letters and add an “é”, “i” or “u” on it. So for -re verbs you add an “é”, for -ir verbs an “i” and for -re verbs an “u”.
| Regular verbs | Parler (To speak) | Manger (To eat) | Aimer (To love) |
| Past participle | parlé | mangé | aimé |
| Finir (To finish) | Choisir (To choose) | Établir (To establish) | |
| Past participle | fini | choisi | établi |
Learn more on the past participle here
More examples of the passé anterieur in French
- Après qu’elle eut préparé le dîner, ils se mirent à table
- After she had prepared dinner, they sat down at the table
- Une fois qu’ils eurent signé le contrat, ils commencèrent à travailler sur le projet
- Once they had signed the contract, they started working on the project
- Lorsqu’ils eurent atteint le sommet de la montagne, ils purent admirer la vue
- When they had reached the top of the mountain, they were able to admire the view