Contrary to what many people believe, we should not use the subjunctive with the conjunction after. This use is always criticized and should be avoided in writing. It is rather the indicative which is appropriate (as sang it Charles Trenet – from whom we borrowed our title – in The soul of the poets).
The subjunctive is used with before because it is the mode of uncertainty. But it does not fit with after, which we use for what has already happened. The world spelling champion Bruno Dewaele qualifies the employment ofafter with the subjunctive.
A good tip to know which mode to use is to replace after through when. If we are tempted to write “After the accident has occurred”, we will see that it does not work: “When the accident has occurred. ” After the accident happened. We can also write After the accident. Before she’s elected, after she’s been elected, after he’s been elected, after he’s been elected.
The locution is used with various tenses of the indicative, according to the concordance of the tenses to be respected. After he came (perfect tense), after he’s gone (Past). We wrote well was and not “barrel”. The circumflex accent is not used with the past tense of the indicative, but with the more-than-perfect subjunctive, which would be incorrect here.
In a newspaper, we use rather little the simple past and the previous past, rather the past tense. We can read in some sources that after constructed with the past tense often indicates a repeating value, but this is not always the case. And the past tense is often used in both the main clause and the subordinate clause. We can even read in a post from the French Academy: He left after we all greeted him.
Excessively
I would like your opinion on the use of the word excessively. It is often heard on radio and television as a synonym for many Where Verry much. I always thought it meant “too much” or “over the limit” or even “beyond what would be acceptable”.
Responnse
We sometimes confuse adverbs excessively and extremely, but they are not synonymous. To distinguish them more easily, we can try to remember that the adverb excessively is “generally followed by an adjective expressing a defect, not a quality”, as Marie-Éva de Villers points out in her Multi-dictionary.
Or that “extremely = very; excessively = too much ”, as summarized by the Linguistic Assistance Bank of the Office québécois de la langue française. He was exceedingly rude to his employees. This singer has an extremely powerful voice.
the Dictionary of difficulties and pitfalls of the French language recommends to “reinforce adjectives of positive or neutral meaning with adverbs very, extremely, at the highest point, etc. : she is very talented ; they are extremely polite ; he is honest to the highest point “.