Learn Hardcore French: Après avoir terminé le premier chapitre, Marie choisit un personnage important. - After finishing the first chapter, Marie chooses an important character.

In French, when you say “after doing something” and you want to show that the action is completed, you use après + infinitif passé (past infinitive):

après avoir terminé = after having finished / after finishing

Structure:

après + avoir/être (infinitive) + past participle

So:

après avoir terminé (after finishing)
après être arrivé (after arriving)

Using après terminer is not correct in standard French.

Why is it avoir terminé and not être terminé?

You choose avoir or être exactly as you do in compound tenses like the passé composé.

The verb terminer normally uses avoir as its auxiliary:
- j’ai terminé (I finished)

So for the past infinitive:

avoir terminé = having finished

You would only use être for verbs that normally take être (like aller, venir, partir, reflexive verbs, etc.):

après être arrivé
après s’être levé

Why doesn’t terminé agree with Marie in après avoir terminé?

In après avoir terminé, terminé is a past participle used with the infinitive avoir, not with a conjugated auxiliary. There is:

no subject agreement
no direct object before the past participle

So it stays in its basic masculine singular form:

après avoir terminé

You would not write après avoir terminée, even though Marie is feminine. Agreement rules for past participles are much more restricted, and they do not apply in this construction.

Could we say Après que Marie a terminé le premier chapitre, elle choisit un personnage important instead? What is the difference?

Yes, that sentence is grammatical and natural.

Differences:

Après avoir terminé le premier chapitre, Marie choisit…
- Uses après + infinitif passé
- More compact, slightly more formal or written style
- Focuses on the action as a block: after finishing
Après que Marie a terminé le premier chapitre, elle choisit…
- Uses après que + clause with a conjugated verb (a terminé)
- More explicit about the subject and tense
- Often feels a bit more spoken or neutral

In everyday French, both are perfectly fine; the infinitive version sounds a bit more elegant or literary.

Why is the main verb choisit (present tense) and not a choisi (past tense)?

It could be either, depending on the context:

Marie choisit un personnage important.
- Present tense: Marie chooses an important character.
- Used for current actions or sometimes for narration (e.g. in a summary of a story: First she reads, then she chooses…)
Marie a choisi un personnage important.
- Passé composé: Marie chose / has chosen an important character.
- Used for a completed action tied to a past moment.

If this sentence is part of a story summary or commentary (e.g. analyzing a book), the present (choisit) is very common; it is called the présent de narration or présent de commentaire.

Could choisit also be a literary past tense (passé simple)?

Yes, choisit can also be the passé simple form of choisir for elle:

elle choisit (present)
elle choisit (passé simple)

They are written and pronounced the same. Only the context (and the other tenses in the text) tell you which one it is.

In a modern, everyday context, you will almost always interpret Marie choisit as present.
In a clearly literary or historical narrative entirely in passé simple, it would be read as a past action.

Why is it le premier chapitre and not un premier chapitre or son premier chapitre?

Le premier chapitre uses the definite article le, which implies:

A specific, identified chapter: the first chapter (of that book or text everyone knows about in this context).

Alternatives would slightly change the meaning:

un premier chapitre = a first chapter (very unusual here, would sound wrong; you normally have only one first chapter)
son premier chapitre = her first chapter (could mean the first chapter she wrote, or the first chapter of her own book)

In most reading or studying contexts, le premier chapitre is the natural choice.

Why is premier placed before chapitre, while important comes after personnage?

Adjective position in French follows patterns:

premier is an ordinal number (first, second, third…), and these almost always come before the noun:
- le premier chapitre
- la deuxième fois
important is a more descriptive, qualitative adjective. Most such adjectives come after the noun:
- un personnage important
- un livre intéressant

So:

premier chapitre (before)
personnage important (after)

This is why the positions are different.

Why is it un personnage important and not une personnage importante, since Marie is female?

In French, personnage is a masculine noun, regardless of whether the character is male or female:

un personnage = a character (male or female)
ce personnage = this character

Because the noun is grammatically masculine:

You use un (not une)
The adjective agrees in masculine singular: important (not importante)

So even for a female character:

un personnage important is grammatically correct.

Could we say un important personnage instead of un personnage important?

No, not in this meaning.

Adjectives like important that describe quality, importance, or opinion almost always go after the noun here:

Natural: un personnage important
Unnatural / wrong in standard French: un important personnage

Only a limited set of common adjectives (like grand, petit, bon, mauvais, beau, jeune, vieux, nouveau) often go before the noun. Important is not in that group in this sense.

Can the introductory part Après avoir terminé le premier chapitre be placed at the end of the sentence?

Yes. Both word orders are correct:

Après avoir terminé le premier chapitre, Marie choisit un personnage important.
Marie choisit un personnage important après avoir terminé le premier chapitre.

Placing it at the beginning slightly emphasizes the condition in time (what had to happen first). Placing it at the end sounds a bit more neutral and is very common in speech.