The Use of the Past Perfect

Read the following example:

Il a mangé le gâteau que j’avais préparé hier.
He ate the cake that I had prepared yesterday.

As you notice there are two actions in the sentence above: “manger” and “préparer”. Both actions happened in the past, but one happened before the other. The action that happened before is expressed by the plus que parfait tense, whereas the second action is expressed in this sentence by the passé composé.

We use the plus que parfait in the following cases:

When there are two actions/or states that happened in the past, and we want to stress that one action happened before the other one, we use the plus que parfait for the first action.

For example:

Nous vivions dans la maison que mon oncle avait achetée pour nous.
We lived in the house that my uncle had bought for us.

My uncle first bought a house for us, then we lived in that house.

Here is another example:

Ils étaient déjà partis quand je suis arrivée chez moi.
They had already left when I got home.

Notice that “déjà” is placed between the auxiliary “être” and the past participle “partis”.

To explain or give a reason for something in the past:

For example:

Comme je n’avais pas prévu de vous rencontrer, je n’ai pas apporté mon carnet de chèques.
As I hadn’t planned to see you, I didn’t bring my check book.

Another example:

J’avais déjà pris mon déjeuner donc je n’avais pas vraiment faim.
I had already had lunch so I was not really hungry.

Notice where we put the adverb “déjà” : between the auxiliary "avoir" and the past participle.



As part of the past conditional

For example:

Si tu m’avais écouté, nous n’aurions pas perdu notre maison.
If you had listened to me, we wouldn’t have lost our house.

Si elle m’avait recruté, elle n’aurait pas fait faillite.
If she had hired me, she wouldn’t have gone bankrupt.



In reported speech:

We use the plus que parfait when we want to report what someone said, promised or announced in the past. The passé composé in the direct speech becomes the plus que parfait in the reported speech.

For example:

Elle a dit qu’elle l’avait rencontré à la banque.
She said that she had met him at the bank.

She first saw him then she said that she did. That’s why we used the plus que parfait for the second verb.

Another example:

Le président de la compagnie a annoncé qu’il avait signé un contrat de plusieurs millions de dollars.
The company’s president announced that he had signed a multi-dollar contract.



The tenses used with the plus que parfait

We saw from the examples above that the plus que parfait is mostly used with other tenses. It is used with the passé simple, the imperfect tense, the passé composé and the past conditional.

We use it with the passé simple when we are narrating an event and it’s usually done in written discourse.

For example:

Elle mit la robe que son ex-mari lui avait offerte.
She put on the dress that her ex-husband had offered her.

We use it with the imparfait when we’re describing a long action in the past such as a habit or an action/a state that used to happen in the past and that’s no longer happening.

Quand il avait fini son dîner, il allait s’assoir sur sa vieille chaise près de la cheminée.
When he had finished his dinner, he used to sit on his old chair by the fire place.

Nous adorions jouer avec la poupée que notre grand-maman nous avait achetée.
We loved to play with the doll that our grandma had bought for us.

We use it with the passé composé in common conversations.

For example:

Elle est rentrée chez elle quand tout le monde était parti.
She went home when everybody had left.

Il a choisi de chanter la chanson que sa maman avait écrite.
He chose to sing the song that his mom had written.