Breakdown of Il nous a raconté qu'il avait caché le soldat chez lui.
il
he
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
lui
him / to him / to her (indirect object)
chez
at the home of / at
avoir
to have
cacher
to hide
que
that (introducing a clause)
raconter
to tell / to recount
le soldat
the soldier
Questions & Answers about Il nous a raconté qu'il avait caché le soldat chez lui.
If his original words were J'avais caché le soldat, why doesn't the tense change in reported speech?
In French reported speech, when the reporting verb (a raconté) is in a past tense, most quoted verbs shift one step further into the past. However, the plus-que-parfait (avait caché) is already the furthest back you can go in the past. Therefore, it remains exactly the same.
Could avait caché be the reported version of a different tense?
Yes! If his original statement was in the passé composé (J'ai caché le soldat), it would also backshift to the plus-que-parfait in this sentence. Because of this, qu'il avait caché can translate to either 'that he hid' or 'that he had hidden', depending on what he originally said.
Why does nous come before the verb instead of after it?
Nous acts as an indirect object pronoun here, meaning 'to us'. In French, object pronouns go directly in front of the conjugated verb. Since the sentence uses the passé composé, the conjugated verb is the helper verb avoir, so nous is placed right before a.
Why do we use chez lui to say 'at his place'?
Chez is the standard French preposition used to mean 'at the home of'. It is always followed by a stressed pronoun (like lui for 'him'). A literal translation like à sa place would mean 'in his seat' or 'in his physical spot', not in his home.
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