Question 1

Why do we use avait raté instead of a raté?

Accepted Answer

This sentence uses the Plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) to translate "had missed". We use this tense to talk about an action that happened before another past action. You form it by taking the imparfait form of the helper verb (here, avait) and adding the past participle (raté).

Question 2

Where do the negative words ne and pas go when using this tense?

Accepted Answer

They go on either side of the helper verb, exactly like they do in the passé composé. In n'avait pas entendu, the n' and pas "hug" the helper verb avait, while the past participle entendu comes after.

Question 3

Can I use manquer instead of rater to say "to miss" here?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Both manquer le train and rater le train are perfectly correct. Rater is slightly more informal and extremely common in everyday spoken French, while manquer is a bit more standard.

Question 4

Since l'alarme is feminine, shouldn't entendu have an extra -e at the end?

Accepted Answer

No, because verbs that use avoir as their helper verb only agree with a direct object if that object comes before the verb. Here, the object (l'alarme) comes after the verb, so entendu stays in its default form.

Il avait raté le train parce qu'il n'avait pas entendu l'alarme.

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