In the quiz, one of the question was translating ''Nous ne sommes pas arrivés depuis longtemps.''
I selected "We din't arrive for long" which is marked wrong.
The right answer was "We haven't been there long". Doesn't this sentence mean "we have just arrived"?
If so, in the lesson, Ne ... pas + Passé composé + depuis longtemps = not in a long time.
Aren't these contradicting. Can someone explain or clarify please. Thanks.
Bonjour Pooja,
Nous venons d'arriver = We have just arrived -> venir de + [infinitive]
Nous ne sommes pas arrivés depuis longtemps = We haven't been there long
I hope this is helpful.
Bonne journée !
Hi Pooja,
If you think that there is an error or contradiction, then you should post a query on the quiz page and the quiz team will look into it for you.
Jim
Yes, some flexibility is required to wrap your head around the different ways one can use depuis in French.
In this case, the literal meaning of the sentence "we didn't arrive for long" doesn't really make sense in English. In English, you can translate it as either "we haven't been here long", "we didn't arrive long ago".
To my ears, "we've just arrived" sounds a bit more immediate than "we haven't been here long." But the exact way how you would translate this to English depends also on context.
Hi Pooja,
If you look through the other Q&A for this lesson, you'll see that this example has been discussed a lot. You're right that it contradicts the rule given in the lesson, and I suggested that the rule should perhaps just be considered a guide.
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