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J'ai ri parce que tu avais caché le cadeau au fond de mon sac.

J'ai ri parce que tu avais caché le cadeau au fond de mon sac.
I laughed because you had hidden the gift at the bottom of my bag.
From Lesson 171:The pluperfect tense usage·French

Questions & Answers about J'ai ri parce que tu avais caché le cadeau au fond de mon sac.

Why do we use avais caché instead of the passé composé here?
Avais caché is in the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) tense, which translates to "had hidden". We use it here to show that the hiding happened before another past action—the laughing (j'ai ri). It makes the timeline of past events clear.
Why is J'ai ri in the passé composé and not the imparfait?
J'ai ri describes a specific, completed event in the past (I laughed right then), rather than a continuous background state (I was laughing). Since it is a single, completed reaction to finding the gift, the passé composé is the right choice.
What verb does ri come from?
Ri is the past participle of the irregular verb rire (to laugh). Because it is highly irregular, its past participle doesn't follow the usual patterns and just has to be memorized.
Why does the sentence use au fond de instead of à le fond de?
The phrase for "at the bottom of" uses the preposition à (at) plus le fond (the bottom). In French, à and le must always contract to form au. You will never see à le written together.

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