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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert French teachers
14,671 questions • 31,815 answers • 965,049 learners
Depuis It can only be used to express a duration of time that started in the past and still continues in the present, or "that both started and stopped in the past." Pendant can be used to describe something that happened in the past, or the future, with" no relevance to the present time".
The above are excerpts from Todd’s answer below marked “correct”. Could someone please explain the parts within inverted commas that I find confusing. The definition of ‘Depuis’ states ‘the action is ongoing’. So, how can it have ceased in the past? The other statement was relating to Pendant. The lesson explains that it could include the present too!
Can one not say "la semaine passee", to mean the same thing as "la semaine derniere"? (I can't find accents)
A sentence mentions-
La compagnie pour laquelle je travaille a les meilleurs résultats du secteur.The company for which I work has the best results in the industry.
I would like to ask whether “dans laquelle” is also acceptable ?
Also if a sentence is given-
L’automne est la saison .................... les feuilles jaunissent.
I came up with the following options-
pendant laquelle/ dans laquelle/ en laquelle
Which of the above is grammatically accurate?
Je vous remercierais pour votre réponse.
Bonjour Madame Cécile,
While attempting a microkwiz, I got wrong in the following 2 senrences -
1.Je suis en cours de danse.Je te rappelle.
2.Ton père est en prison.
I gave my answers as (i) dans le (ii) dans la but was marked incorrect.
I did so because the lesson states dans is used when we need to be more specific about a place.
Please explain why instead en is a better choice ?
Merci d’avance.
In the song "Aux Champs-Élysées" the first line is "Je m'baladais sur l'avenue".
Is this a specific exception where you can use "sur" instead of "dans"?
This Imperfect vs. Passé Composé thing is giving me a very hard time. I'm starting to think that I will never make sense of this in all but the most clear cut cases. In the writing challenge, it asked me to translate "But she has always liked this instrument"...and it's in the passé composé?
She now plays the accordion so she didn't stop liking it. She still likes it, with no ending in sight and no clear beginning (obviously always doesn't really mean always...she wasn't born that way). I have the feeling that it has something to do with the word always, but I'm just not understanding why, especially since aimer, at least from what I've seen, seems to use the Imperfect more often (though I mostly see it related to love between people...where there might be an emotional competent that is missing when you talking about an accordion?)
The instructions say: When referring to the street, road, avenue, or boulevard people live on (using habiter), you can either use dans la/le, simply la/le or nothing at all.
The three examples from the explanation page were J'habite la rue Pasteur; J'habite rue Pasteur; J'habite dans la rue Pasteur , all following the instructions.
However, in the quiz, Mon restaurant est en La Rue du Temple is given as a correct answer. I did not choose this sentence as En was not mentioned in the instructions nor in the examples. Is the difference between "habite" - living on the street vs. having a business on the street? Thank you.
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