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Elle aurait poursuivi sa carrière.

Elle aurait poursuivi sa carrière.
She would have pursued her career.
From Lesson 210:The past conditional tense·French

Questions & Answers about Elle aurait poursuivi sa carrière.

How do we form the past conditional in this sentence?
The past conditional is a compound tense. You take the auxiliary verb (in this case, avoir) and put it in the present conditional to get aurait (would have). Then, you add the past participle of the main verb, which is poursuivi (pursued). Together, this gives us aurait poursuivi (would have pursued).
Why do we use avoir as the auxiliary here instead of être?
Most French verbs use avoir in compound tenses like the past conditional. You only use être for certain movement or state-change verbs (like aller or devenir) and reflexive verbs (like se laver). Since poursuivre (to pursue) doesn't fall into those special categories, it takes avoir.
Why doesn't the past participle poursuivi add an 'e' to agree with the feminine subject Elle?
Because the auxiliary verb is avoir, the past participle doesn't agree with the subject. It would only agree with a direct object if that object came before the verb. Here, the direct object (sa carrière) comes after the verb, so poursuivi stays in its default masculine singular form.
Does sa mean 'her' here just because it refers to Elle?
Not quite! In French, possessive adjectives agree with the noun being owned, not the person who owns it. Carrière is a feminine noun, so we must use the feminine singular sa. If the sentence were about a man (Il), 'his career' would still be sa carrière.

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