Breakdown of Après que la mi-temps a commencé, la tension a diminué.
avoir
to have
commencer
to start
diminuer
to decrease
après que
after (conjunction)
Questions & Answers about Après que la mi-temps a commencé, la tension a diminué.
Why does après que take the indicative (a commencé) here instead of the subjunctive?
Unlike avant que (before), which takes the subjunctive because the action hasn't happened yet, après que refers to an event that has already occurred and is a realized fact. Therefore, it strictly requires the indicative mood. You will often hear native speakers mistakenly use the subjunctive with après que out of habit, but grammatically, the indicative is the correct choice.
Both clauses use the passé composé (a commencé, a diminué). Shouldn't the first action be in a different tense to show it happened first?
In highly formal written French, you would typically use a tense like the passé antérieur to show that the first action was fully completed before the second one started. However, in modern everyday French, it is very common to use the passé composé for both clauses because the phrase après que already makes the chronological order of events perfectly clear.
Could we drop the que and just say Après la mi-temps a commencé?
No, you cannot use après directly before a clause with a conjugated verb. To connect two full clauses, you must use the conjunction après que. If you want to use après by itself, it must be followed by a noun, for example: Après la mi-temps, la tension a diminué (After halftime, the tension decreased).
Is mi-temps a standard word for 'halftime' in all contexts?