French Lesson 8: Relative and Demonstrative Pronouns - Conversational past tense - Future Perfect

The passé composé is a compound tense; passé composé means compound past. Its two parts are: an auxiliary verb conjugated in the present tense and a past participle.
To obtain the basic form of the past participle for -er verbs, replace -er by -é.
The model is:

• j'ai chanté
• tu as chanté
• il a chanté
• nous avons chanté
• vous avez chanté
• ils ont chanté

In item 1: rencontré is the past participle of rencontrer.
Other verbs must be checked and learnt.

Avoir

Avoir is the most common auxiliary verb.

It is used with all the transitive verbs

j'ai fini mes devoirs; j'ai appris mes leçons.

with impersonal verbs

il a fallu...; il a neigé.

and with most of intransitive verbs

j'ai joué toute la journée.

It is also used to conjugate itself

j'ai eu un rhume.

and to conjugate être

j'ai été champion du monde.

Etre

Etre is the auxiliary verb for the passive voice (we will learn it later) and for all reflexive verbs.
In item10: nous nous sommes téléphonés.
Some verbs, often verbs indicating a movement or with a passive meaning, make the passé composé using être as auxiliary verb.

Uses of the Passé Composé

The passé composé, is used to relate an action that happened at a definite time and indicates that this action was completed in the past.
It's often a source of confusion for English speakers because the English form:
auxiliary in present tense + past participle
refers to an action still in process.

We know that the imperfect tense is used to describe a background:
des nuages obscurcissaient le ciel (the sky was dark with clouds).
When something specific happened within the context, it is expressed in the passé composé:
on a entendu le tonnerre (we heard thunder).
The imperfect tense describe the conditions in which the event in the passé composé takes place.

Most of the time, people use the passé composé to speak about anything that has past. It really deserves its name of the conversational past tense. It is also widely used in writting and nowadays many novels use it.

Agreement of the past participle.

We cannot do without the passé composé.
Its participles must be learnt, in the knowledge that most of French verbs (95%) are regular and simple -er verbs.

The Future Perfect Tense, le futur antérieur, is a compound tense. Its two parts are:
the appropriate auxiliary verb conjugated in the future + a past participle. The model is:

• j'aurai chanté
• tu auras chanté
• il aura chanté
• nous aurons chanté
• vous aurez chanté
• ils auront chanté

Uses of the Future Perfect Tense

The Future Perfect Tense is used to express a future action that will be completed prior to another future action.
The action will have happened by a specific point of the future.
The Future Perfect Tense is often used after the conjunctions: après que, aussitôt que, dès que, quand and tant que
with the future tense or the future perfect tense in the main clause:

When the cops arrive (specific point of the future), the burglar will have left (action that will be completed).

Quand les flics arriveront (specific point of the future), le voleur sera parti (action that will be completed)

They will leave (action that will be completed) as soon as they pack their things (specific point of the future).

Ils partiront (action that will be completed) aussitôt qu'ils auront fait leurs valises (specific point of the future).

In French, the future must be used after quand and other conjunctions when the verb in the main phrase is in the future.

The Future Perfect Tense is also used to express probability:
John n'arrive pas, il aura oublié notre rendez-vous
John is not arriving; he must have forgotten our appointment.

You are not likely to use the Future Perfect Tense, at least, not every day. You just need to recognize it when you read or hear it.

We know that personal pronouns have a definite place in relation to the verb:

Je donne ce cadeau à mon ami.

Je le lui donne.

Je donne un cadeau à mon ami.

Je lui en donne un.

Nous offrons des fruits à nos amis.

Nous leur en offrons.

Personal pronouns keep their definite places in compound tenses, in relation to the auxiliary verb:

J'ai donné ce cadeau à mon ami.

Je le lui ai donné.

Je donne un cadeau à mon ami.

Je lui en ai donné un.

Nous avons offert des fruits à nos amis.

Nous leur en avons offert.

Ils auront offert des fleurs à leurs parents.

Nous leur en auront offert.

Between the auxiliary and the past participle, nothing takes place except:
the second part of the negation: Vous n'avez pas voyagé
an adverb: Vous avez toujours voyagé.

Relative pronouns can be divided in three groups depending on their functions.

Subject

If the pronoun functions as the subject, the pronoun is: qui: items 1, 2, 3.
Je connais l'homme qui arrive - I know the man who is coming.
Je sais qui arrive - I know who is coming.
There is ce qui when there is no antecedent and when qui does not represent people:
je ne sais pas ce qui arrive: ce qui is subject of arrive: I don't know what happens.

Direct Object

If the pronoun functions as the direct object, the pronoun is:
qui when there is no nominal antecedent and when qui represents people or other comparable:
je ne sais pas qui j'attends I don't know whom I am waiting for,
The pronoun is que when there is a nominal antecedent:
items 12: un homme que j'aime bien
and also: le pain que je mange, le livre que je lis, le chien que je caresse, etc.
There is ce que when there is no antecedent and when que does not represent people:
item 12: c'est ce que m'a répondu la gardienne
je ne sais pas ce que j'attends I don't know what I am waiting for.
Before a vowel, que becomes qu': il ne sait pas ce qu'il attend.

Indirect Object

à

If the pronoun functions as the indirect object with the preposition à, the pronoun is:
auquel, à qui, (à quoi), auxquels, à laquelle, auxquelles.

• L'homme à qui je pense; l'homme auquel je pense
• L'appartement auquel je pense
• La femme à qui je pense; la femme à laquelle je pense
• les garçons à qui je pense; les garçons auxquels je pense
• les filles à qui je pense; les filles auxquelles je pense
• les congés auxquels je pense; les vacances auxquelles je pense

As often in French, the spelling makes the things seem more difficult than they are: auquel, auxquels, auxquelles sound alike.

de

If the pronoun functions as the indirect object with the preposition de, the pronoun is:
duquel, de qui, (de quoi), desquels, de laquelle, desquelles, and if there is an antecedent: dont.

• L'homme de qui je parle; l'homme dont je parle
• L'appartement duquel je parle; L'appartement dont je parle;
• La femme de qui je parle; la femme dont je parle
• les garçons de qui je parle; les garçons dont je parle
• les filles de qui je parle; les filles dont je parle
• les congés desquels je parle; les vacances desquelles je parle; les congés, les vacances, dont je parle.

Good news: dont is overcoming auquel and its derivatives.

If there is no antecedent, the pronoun is qui for people:
je ne sais pas de qui il parle, I don't know whom he is talking about.
otherwise the pronoun is quoi: je ne sais pas de quoi il parle, I don't know what he is talking about.

The relative pronoun: où

The pronoun relative où is unique and invariable. It is used for space:

• Le magasin où je vais.
• La ville où j'habite.
• Le pays d'où je viens.

and it is also used for time:

• Au moment où je vous parle...
• L'année où je suis née...
• Le jour où on s'est rencontré...

In lax French, que is increasingly used instead of any pronoun and when there is a preposition it is put at the end of the clause; but sentences like La fille que je suis avec, until now, are grammatically wrong and socially catastrophic.
You should be aware of this phenomenon as you will hear it, but I don't advise you to speak in this way. (It may be the rule in fifty years.)

Summary table of relative pronouns.

We use demonstrative pronouns to express this one, these, etc.

The indefinite pronouns ce, c' and ça are among the more common words in French.
C(e)' is used mainly with the verb être: c'est, c'était, ce sont, ce sera.
ça is often used before the other verbs (ça va), never elided before a vowel.
It is replacing ceci and cela which are becoming obsolete except in the expression et ceci-celà that means: and everything else.
The suffixes -ci (as in ici: here) and -là (as in là and là-bas: there) distinguish the closest thing from the furthest thing.
The use of -ci is fading in modern French and -là is increasingly used to describe the closest thing. So speakers say celui-là là-bas or celle-là là-bas, etc, to express the furthest thing.

We use demonstrative pronouns to emphasize a word.

In English tone of voice is used to emphasize a word.
French uses a demonstrative pronoun as in item 2:
celui qui promène son chien
To stress what is said, the demonstrative pronoun can be before a relative clause:
c'est celui que j'aime
or before a clause beginning in de:
ses bijoux sont ceux de la couronne.

The following verbs use être as the auxiliary verb in the compound tenses.
When possible, it's a good idea to learn them in pairs.
aller (allé), venir (venu), retourner (retourné), revenir (revenu)
arriver (arrivé), partir (parti)
(r)entrer (entré), sortir (sorti)
monter (monté), descendre (descendu)
naître (né) , mourir (mort)
rester (resté), devenir (devenu)
tomber (tombé)
When the verbs above have a direct object, they use avoir as the auxiliary verb:
J'ai descendu l'escalier, j'ai entré mon code, j'ai monté mes courses, j'ai rentré les poubelles et j'ai sorti le chien.