Learn French: Je l'ai vu tout à l'heure. - I saw him a little while ago.

The phrase il y a requires a specific measurement of time right after it, like il y a cinq minutes (five minutes ago). For a general 'a short time ago' or 'just now', French uses the fixed expression tout à l'heure instead.

Can tout à l'heure also mean 'later'?

Yes! Tout à l'heure is a very handy expression that means either 'a little while ago' (in the recent past) or 'in a little while / later' (in the near future). You know it means 'ago' here because the verb ai vu is in the past tense.

Why is l' placed before ai vu instead of after it?

In French, direct object pronouns like le (him/it) or la (her/it) go directly before the conjugated verb, which is ai here. The e is dropped from le because ai starts with a vowel, giving us Je l'ai vu.

If I wanted to say 'I saw HER a little while ago', how would this sentence change?