{"id":8557,"date":"2014-04-17T10:48:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T08:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=8557"},"modified":"2017-10-23T12:19:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T10:19:10","slug":"french-grammar-using-depuis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-using-depuis\/","title":{"rendered":"French Grammar: Using *Depuis*!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Un peu de grammaire aujourd&#8217;hui<\/strong><\/em> (A little bit of grammar today)<strong>!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here is a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-depuis\/\">flashback lesson<\/a>&#8221; from <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/transparent-%e2%80%9cnot-your-parent%e2%80%99s-cours-de-francais%e2%80%9d\/\">The French Blog<\/a>, using sentences which you might hear if you are talking to French people.<br \/>\nToday, we&#8217;ll focus on the word &#8220;<em><strong>depuis<\/strong><\/em>&#8220;, which usually means &#8220;<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>since<\/strong><\/span>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Let us see the different cases it can be used.<\/p>\n<p>For example, one can ask you about the period you have spent living in France (just an example, but it&#8217;s up to you to make it become real):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Vous \u00eates en France <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; text-decoration: underline;\">depuis<\/span><\/span> quand?<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(How long have you been in France?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can also use the sentence\u00a0&#8220;<strong><em>depuis combien de temps?<\/em><\/strong>&#8221; (&#8220;since how long?&#8221;)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Vous habitez \u00e0 Paris <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; text-decoration: underline;\">depuis<\/span><\/span> combien de temps?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Literally: &#8220;You live in Paris since how long?&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An answer can be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>J&#8217;habite \u00e0 Paris <span style=\"text-decoration: underline; color: #ff0000;\">depuis<\/span>\u00a0deux ans<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(&#8220;I\u00a0live\u00a0in Paris since\u00a0two years.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8220;<\/span><\/em><strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; text-decoration: underline;\">Depuis<\/span><\/span> combien de temps \u00e9tudiez-vous le fran\u00e7ais?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(How long have you been studying French?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Depuis&#8221; can also be used for &#8220;continuous&#8221; actions. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Il conduit <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">depuis<\/span> quatre heures<\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0(&#8220;He has been driving <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>for<\/em><\/span><\/strong> four hours.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Or:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Nous nous reposons <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; text-decoration: underline;\">depuis<\/span><\/span> une heure<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(We have been resting for an hour)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In an informal\u00a0question:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Vous attendez ici <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">depuis<\/span> une demi-heure?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(You&#8217;ve been waiting here for a half an hour?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong><em>* <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ce dont il vous faut vous\u00a0souvenir<\/span><\/em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">(What you need to remember)<\/span>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000; text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><em>Depuis<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>means &#8220;for&#8221; when used with the present tense and followed by a time expression.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It is used to show that an action began <em><strong>dans le pass\u00e9<\/strong><\/em> (in the past), but is still happening in the present.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This construction is the equivalent of\u00a0the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>present perfect in English<\/strong><\/span>; in other words, &#8220;<strong>has\/have been ___ing<\/strong>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">However, keep in mind that it\u00a0cannot always be directly translated as so, i.e. <em><strong>mot \u00e0 mot<\/strong><\/em> (word for word), so be very careful!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"184\" height=\"182\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2014\/04\/4885030936_199830d631.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>Un peu de grammaire aujourd&#8217;hui (A little bit of grammar today)! Here is a &#8220;flashback lesson&#8221; from The French Blog, using sentences which you might hear if you are talking to French people. Today, we&#8217;ll focus on the word &#8220;depuis&#8220;, which usually means &#8220;since.&#8221; Let us see the different cases it can be used&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-grammar-using-depuis\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":23666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[238,346,449,543,544],"class_list":["post-8557","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary","tag-depuis-in-english","tag-french-grammar","tag-habiter-in-english","tag-prepositions-with-habiter","tag-present-perfect-in-french"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28584,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8557\/revisions\/28584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}