French/Grammar/Tenses/Past conditional

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Usage of the Past Conditional[edit | edit source]

Past conditional is used to refer to an event that could have taken place in the past. Eg. "If he had not got hungry, we would have gone further."

Formation of the Past Conditional[edit | edit source]

  • The past conditional is a compound tense- it consists of two verbs, the auxiliary verb and the past participle one seeks to use in this tense.
  • The auxiliary verb is conjugated as if it were being used in the present conditional.
  • The past participle is placed immediately after the auxiliary verb.
  • A negative structure such as ne ... pas is always placed around the auxiliary verb, not the past participle.