Pendant la seconde partie

John B.C1Kwiziq community member

Pendant la seconde partie

"In the first half of the week" the acceptable translation is Dans (or durant or pendant) la première moitié though above it says "Durant".  However, "In the second half of the week", "Dans" and "moitié are both marked as incorrect with "moitié" is replaced by "partie".  Could you please explain the differences as I don't understand them.

 

Asked 9 months ago
CélineNative French expert teacher in KwiziqCorrect answer

Bonjour John,

Adrian is correct that "part" would not be translated with "moitié" but with "partie". However, you are right that "dans" should be accepted here. We've now amended this part of the exercise accordingly.

I hope this is helpful.

Bonne journée !

Adrian B.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

In the second one the English was "second part" rather than "second half", but I also don't understand why "dans" stopped working.

Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

The preposition dans in combination with time is only used to refer to an event which happens a specific time in the future and never a time span. Even though in English you use "in" in both cases, this doesn't work in French.

dans une semaine -- in one week (meaning: one week in the future)

If you want to refer to a duration during which an event happens you use durant or pendant:

durant la seconde partie de la semaine -- during the second part of the week

John B.C1Kwiziq community member

Thanks Chris.  Then should not "Dans" have been marked as incorrect for "In the first half of the week"?

Chris W.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Ah, I see the inconsistency you refer to. I guess dans works as well in this case and it is indeed an inconsistency in marking. Let‘s hear what the pros have to say. 

John B. asked:

Pendant la seconde partie

"In the first half of the week" the acceptable translation is Dans (or durant or pendant) la première moitié though above it says "Durant".  However, "In the second half of the week", "Dans" and "moitié are both marked as incorrect with "moitié" is replaced by "partie".  Could you please explain the differences as I don't understand them.

 

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