{"id":15501,"date":"2012-07-13T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=15501"},"modified":"2017-10-20T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T11:22:52","slug":"how-to-say-im-doing-in-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/how-to-say-im-doing-in-french\/","title":{"rendered":"How to say “I’m doing” in French"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salut! Comment \u00e7a va?<\/em><\/p>\n

French doesn’t have a specific verb tense to say sentences like these:<\/p>\n

What are you doing? –> I’m doing my homework.<\/p>\n

What’s he doing? –> He’s cleaning his car.<\/p>\n

We have two ways of saying this. The first one is to use the present tense:<\/p>\n

Qu’est-ce que tu fais<\/strong>?
\nJe fais <\/strong>mes devoirs.<\/em><\/p>\n

Qu’est-ce qu’il fait<\/strong>?
\nIl nettoie <\/strong>sa voiture.<\/p>\n

Now when you also have the verb expression \u00eatre en train de<\/strong>, which means to be in process of doing something. You use it when you want to insist on the ongoing nature of an activity. Here are some examples:<\/p>\n

Je suis en train d<\/strong>‘\u00e9tudier pour mon examen. [I’m studying for my test.]<\/em>
\nTu es en train de<\/strong> faire tes devoirs. [You are doing your homework.]<\/em>
\nIl est en train de<\/strong> nettoyer sa voiture. [He is cleaning his car.]<\/em>
\nElle est en train de<\/strong> se maquiller. [She’s putting makeup on.]<\/em>
\nOn est en train d<\/strong>‘attendre le bus. [We are waiting for the bus.]<\/em>
\nNous sommes en train de<\/strong> jouer au football. [We are playing football.]<\/em>
\nVous \u00eates en train de<\/strong> parler fran\u00e7ais. [You are speaking French.]<\/em>
\nIls sont en train de<\/strong> se pr\u00e9parer pour l’entrevue. [They are preparing for the interview.]<\/em><\/p>\n

If you don’t want to emphasize the time nature of the activity and only express the activity itself you could say:<\/p>\n

J’\u00e9tudie <\/strong>pour mon examen. [I’m studying for my test.]
\nTu fais <\/strong>tes devoirs. [You are doing your homework.]
\nIl nettoie <\/strong>sa voiture. [He is cleaning his car.]
\nElle se maquille<\/strong>. [She’s putting makeup on.]
\nOn attend <\/strong>le bus. [We are waiting for the bus.]
\nNous jouons <\/strong>au football. [We are playing football.]
\nVous parlez <\/strong>fran\u00e7ais. [You are speaking French.]
\nIls se pr\u00e9parent<\/strong> l’entrevue. [They are preparing for the interview.]<\/p>\n

C’est tout pour aujourd’hui! On se voit!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Salut! Comment \u00e7a va? French doesn’t have a specific verb tense to say sentences like these: What are you doing? –> I’m doing my homework. What’s he doing? –> He’s cleaning his car. We have two ways of saying this. The first one is to use the present tense: Qu’est-ce que tu fais? Je fais…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[346],"class_list":["post-15501","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-french-grammar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15501"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28400,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15501\/revisions\/28400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}