Kilo Lingo

Ch 15 · Lesson 14

Time expressions depuis

Prescribed by the AQA specification.

The short version

keeps the verb in the present

.

I have been learning French for three years.
Why?

If the action is still running, French treats it as a present fact however long it has gone on. is I have been learning French for three years, with a plain present . Reaching for the here is the big error.

for time spent, pour for time planned

.

I worked for two hours.
Why?

measures a finished, bounded stretch: . Pour is for an intended duration still ahead of you: . English uses for in both, which is why learners write , and it is wrong.

Had been doing is with the imparfait

.

I had been waiting for an hour when he arrived.
Why?

Move a sentence into the past and the present becomes the imparfait: (I have been waiting) turns into (I had been waiting). For an action that was still going on, the verb stays in an ongoing tense, not the .

y a plus a length of time means ago

.

He left two days ago.
Why?

y a followed by a length of time counts back from now: y a , he left two days ago. The verb is usually in the . Do not reach for , which means before: y a is the everyday French ago.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 4 min read

Practice

Practise this lesson

10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 22 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 14 of 17 in this chapter

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