luckgod.

[green agate]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[flint garden]

Passé composé for an action that happened in the past and plus-que-parfait for a past action happening prior to another one.
Example : J'ai prêté à un ami la voiture que j'avais lavée.
Here, washing the car happened before lending it to a friend, an action that already happened in the past.

[sharp niche]

have done/did
had done

[spare wadi]

eh I don't think comparing them to their english versions is very wise, plus-que-parfait sees a lot more usage in french

in the example above, it would've been "I lent the car I washed to a friend" and not "that I had washed"

granted you still could say it in English but it's not the tense most people would go for in this and many other scenarios

Nameless' definition fits better

[jade vapor]

plus que parfait is pretty much identical in english and french, intuition from English easily transfers

j'avais mangé - I had eaten

I find it to be probably the most similar to English out of all French tenses actually

it's just that English simple past can translate to literally every single french past tense depending on context like @spare wadi pointed out, so you have to be a bit careful when going from english -> french. but French -> English is super simple. Direct translation into the pluperfect will preserve all nuance, or at least, I've never seen an example where that's not the case. You just may have the option to put it in simple past too.