Breakdown of Après que l'entraîneur a réuni les joueurs, ils se sont écoutés les uns les autres.
être
to be
ils
they (masculine/mixed)
avoir
to have
écouter
to listen to
se
himself, herself, themselves (reflexive)
le joueur
the player
les uns les autres
one another
après que
after (conjunction)
l'entraîneur
the coach (m)
réunir
to gather (bring together)
Questions & Answers about Après que l'entraîneur a réuni les joueurs, ils se sont écoutés les uns les autres.
Why is a réuni in the indicative mood rather than the subjunctive?
While avant que (before) requires the subjunctive because the action has not happened yet and is uncertain, après que (after) is followed by the indicative. This is because the action in the après que clause is a stated fact that has already occurred. Native speakers sometimes mistakenly use the subjunctive with après que by analogy with avant que, but the indicative is the grammatically correct choice here.
What is the purpose of adding les uns les autres at the end of the sentence?
Why does the past participle écoutés have an -s at the end?
With reciprocal verbs in the passé composé, the past participle agrees with the reflexive pronoun (here, se) if it acts as the direct object. Because you listen to someone directly in French (écouter quelqu'un), the se is a direct object. Since se refers to the plural subject ils, we add an -s to écouté.
Could we use the plus-que-parfait (avait réuni) instead of the passé composé (a réuni) here?
Yes. In formal writing, it is very common to use a past perfect tense like the plus-que-parfait (avait réuni) after après que to emphasize that the gathering was fully completed before they listened to each other. However, using the passé composé for both actions is perfectly acceptable and very common in everyday spoken French.
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