Word
Après que le capitaine nous a réunis, nous n'avons pas visionné le match.
Meaning
After the captain gathered us, we did not view the match.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Après que le capitaine nous a réunis, nous n'avons pas visionné le match.
nous
we / us (object pronoun)
avoir
to have
ne
not (used before the verb)
pas
not (used after the verb)
Questions & Answers about Après que le capitaine nous a réunis, nous n'avons pas visionné le match.
Why does après que take the indicative (a réunis) here instead of the subjunctive?
Après que (after) introduces an action that has already occurred and is a stated fact. Because it is a reality, it takes the indicative mood. In contrast, avant que (before) introduces an action that has not happened yet, so it requires the subjunctive. Note: You will often hear native French speakers use the subjunctive after après que by habit, but the indicative is the correct grammatical rule taught here.
Why is there an "s" on réunis when the subject, le capitaine, is singular?
This is a classic rule of past participle agreement that often trips learners up. With the auxiliary verb avoir, the past participle agrees with the direct object, but only if that object comes before the verb. Here, the direct object is nous (us), which is placed before a. Since nous is plural, réuni takes an s.
Could we use the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) for the first action instead of the passé composé?
Yes, you could say Après que le capitaine nous avait réunis... to heavily emphasize that the gathering was completed deeper in the past. However, when using après que to sequence two completed actions in a row, French speakers frequently just use the passé composé for both clauses to keep the sentence straightforward.
Why use visionné instead of the more common regardé?