French help please

[moved]

DD is revising for the Oxford MLAT and asking for my help. Rather laughable as her grammar is much better than mine.

Can anyone help with this one please?

Aussitôt qu'il (répondre) à ta lettre, la situation sera beaucoup plus claire.
I put a répondu, DD put répondra
We also wondered about répond

Thank you in advance.

[sdjoud]

Your DD is right, the correct answer is répondra.

I can see why you may think repond is correct(your are thinking in English

[KS10]

I would have said the future tense too.

[doodles]

DH reckons it's "repond" as aussitot qu' is an expression which takes the subjunctive, which in this case is the same as the present tense.

[JaneEyre]

I am sorry to see this post just today as I may come too late to give another suggestion. I rather think this is ‘futur antérieur’ ( see 1. below) which is a 'trickier' tense than present tense and future tense:

Emploi du futur antérieur
Le futur antérieur est un temps du futur. C'est un temps composé.
1. Employé avec le futur simple (concordance)
Le futur antérieur peut s'employer avec le futur simple pour exprimer une action qui aura lieu avant une seconde action.
Exemple : Quand tu seras parti, ils fermeront la porte.
2. Employé seul
Le futur antérieur peut s'employer seul pour exprimer un fait ou une action qui se sera achevée à ce moment là.
Exemple : Dans deux ans, ils auront fini les travaux.

So the sentence in the case given is:
Aussitôt qu'il aura répondu à ta lettre, la situation sera beaucoup plus claire.

Hope this helps.

Good luck to her for the exam!

[KS10]

You both sound right now. I'm trying to google it but it hasn't made it any clearer. I swear I used to know this stuff. I'm going to consult Whitmarsh when I get home.

[booellesmum]

My French is rubbish so I was waiting for JaneEyre to notice this post.
Would listen to her every time as she has a distinct advantage!

[moved]

Thanks all. The test is pretty tough but reminding me of some long forgotten vocab. How did I forget louer when it was one of the first subjunctive phrases I learnt formally. Dieu soit loué.

If everyone's happy, I will probably be back with a few more. I lost my Bescherelle a few years ago.

[solimum]

My French grammar is non-existent (rusty O Level c. 1979) but out of interest I looked this up:

http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/futureperfect.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[KS10]

Not sure if this will help. The examples in the book use dès que and recevoir.

French (future): dès que je recevrai
English (present): as soon as I receive
e.g. I will pay as soon as I receive the invoice.

French (future perfect): dès que j'aurai reçu
English (perfect): as soon as I have received
e.g. I will pay as soon as I have received the invoice.

French (conditional): dès que je recevrais
English (simple past): as soon as I received
e.g. I said I would pay as soon as I received the invoice.

French (conditional perfect): dès que j'aurais reçu
English (pluperfect): as soon as I had received
e.g. I said I would pay as soon as I had received the invoice.

I hope there are no typos.

PS: Not from Whitmarsh