News

You need to know that in conversational French, not one but two subjunctive tenses are used: the present and the past. Remember the conjunction that precedes subjunctive is mostly “que”. It’s commonly said that French people use Subjunctive for things/concepts that are subjective.

Following the previous post about Present Subjunctive, let’s study now the Past Subjunctive. You know now that the conjunction that precedes subjunctive is “que” and that Subjunctive mood is used for subjectivity. The only difference with Present Subjunctive is that Past Subjunctive is only used when the action in the subordinate clause has taken place before the action in the main clause.

As you may know, two verbs to know are used in French. Which one do I need to use then? Well, context is very important and usually defines which verb you’re going to use. Besides grammar is essential in this particular case and is going to help a lot to pick the correct verb accordingly.