If I understand correctly, the sentence means "His stomach started to rumble/growl". I just don't understand which tense is it? If "se mettre a faire + infinitive" means to "begin doing something" (correct me if I'm wrong) and we want to say "someone began/started to do something" shouldn't it be in passé composé and hence "se a (s'a?) mis à gronder"?
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1 Answer
Pronominal verbs like se mettre always use être as an auxiliary to form compound tenses.
Ils se sont envolés pour Rome.
It's also the case for normal verbs accidentally used reflexively.
Il a frappé son voisin.
Il s'est frappé sur la tête.
But beware of the agreement of the past participle in some reflexive uses of the verbs. Even though the auxiliary is être in appearance, the agreement is still done with a potential direct object, which may in some cases be different from the subject.
- Elles se sont offert des cadeaux. (the direct object appears after the verb)
- Les cadeaux qu'elles se sont offerts. (the direct object appears before the verb)
- Ils se sont téléphoné. (no direct object)
- Ils se sont entendus. (the direct object is identical to the subject)
answered Dec 10, 2015 at 15:25
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I can't see the difference between the last 2 examples, could you explicit it a bit more ?– RandomDec 10, 2015 at 15:47
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1@Random On téléphone à quelqu'un, mais on entend quelqu'un. Dec 10, 2015 at 16:02