Breakdown of Vous êtes ravis que l'équipe ait triomphé.
être
to be
vous
you (plural/formal)
avoir
to have
l'équipe
the team (f)
que
that (introducing a clause)
ravi
delighted
triompher
to triumph
Questions & Answers about Vous êtes ravis que l'équipe ait triomphé.
Why is the past subjunctive (ait triomphé) used here instead of the present subjunctive?
The phrase Vous êtes ravis que expresses an emotion, which triggers the subjunctive. Because the team's triumph happened before the feeling of being thrilled, you need the past subjunctive to show that earlier timeframe (anteriority).
Why is there an 's' on ravis?
The 's' tells us that Vous refers to multiple people ('you all') rather than a single person being addressed formally. Adjectives used with the verb être must agree in gender and number with the subject.
Why do we use ait instead of soit as the auxiliary verb for triomphé?
The verb triompher takes avoir as its auxiliary in all compound tenses. To form the past subjunctive, you simply conjugate avoir in the present subjunctive (ait) and add the past participle (triomphé).
Since l'équipe represents a group of people, why isn't the verb plural (aient)?
In French, collective nouns like l'équipe (the team) or la famille (the family) are grammatically singular. Even though a team has many members, the noun itself is singular, so it takes the third-person singular conjugation: elle ait.
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