Again question "...haven't been in France for long."

LewisC1Kwiziq community member

Again question "...haven't been in France for long."

Test question: How would you say "I haven't been in France for long."?

Per the lesson, Ne...pas + Présent indicatif + depuis longtemps = not long / not for long -> It started a short while ago, and is still ongoing

My answer marked incorrect: Je n'arrive pas en France depuis longtemps.

Correct answer per system: Je ne suis pas arrivé en France depuis longtemps.

According to the lesson,

use of Présent indicatif translates as "not long / not for a long time," whereas

use of Passé composé translates as "not for a long time / not for ages; over and done in the past"

Asked 4 years ago
ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor Correct answer

I would say this:

Je ne suis pas en France depuis longtemps.

Je ne suis pas arrivé en France depuis longtemps.

The former sentence talks about a period which started in the past and continues up until the present time. The second one focuses on the event of the arrival, which has no connection to the present.

LewisC1Kwiziq community member

Thanks, Chris, but I'm afraid the issue isn't resolved.

The test question regards an action that started in the past and continues up to present time ("have not been in France for long"), so I answered the test question using Présent indicatif as per the lesson yet the Kwiziq system marked my answer as incorrect and indicated the correct answer would be the use of Passé composé.

In other words, unless I'm misunderstanding the whole thing, the lesson says to use Présent indicatif but Kwiziq wants Passé composé.

ChrisC1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

You look at the French sentence, not the English translation. The French sentence takes about the act of arriving. That happened solely in the past.

Again question "...haven't been in France for long."

Test question: How would you say "I haven't been in France for long."?

Per the lesson, Ne...pas + Présent indicatif + depuis longtemps = not long / not for long -> It started a short while ago, and is still ongoing

My answer marked incorrect: Je n'arrive pas en France depuis longtemps.

Correct answer per system: Je ne suis pas arrivé en France depuis longtemps.

According to the lesson,

use of Présent indicatif translates as "not long / not for a long time," whereas

use of Passé composé translates as "not for a long time / not for ages; over and done in the past"

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