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Present Perfect Continuous or Progressive in French:
Video here: http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/magazine/?p=513
You know that in English, we use this tense to speak about continuous facts or activities which have started in the past and either are continuing in the present or have just ended.
In French, we do not have such a tense, to translate the Present Perfect Continuous we need 2 tenses.
1- Present Perfect Continuous in French: le Passé Composé
the Passé Composé is only for things in the past, so if you want to translate “I have been working all day”, first you need to express if you are still working or not.
You have stopped: J’ai travaillé toute la journée
You are still working: J’ai travaillé toute la journée et ça continue (you need to make clear that you are still working)
It has been snowing all week:
It has stopped: Il a neigé toute la semaine
It is still snowing: Il a neigé toute la semaine et ça continue
2- Present Perfect Continuous in sentences with “for” or “since”: le Présent
It has been snowing since Monday: Il neige depuis lundi
It has been snowing for 5 days:
- Il neige depuis 5 jours
- ça fait 5 jours qu’il neige
- Il y a 5 jours qu’il neige
I have been learning French since 2001: j’apprends le français depuis 2001
I have been learning French for 9 years:
- J’apprends le français depuis 9 ans
- ça fait 9 ans que j’apprends le français
- Il y a 9 ans que j’apprends le français
I have been working since 8am: je travaille depuis 8 heures ce matin
I have been working for 8 hours:
- ça fait 8 heures que je travaille
- il y a 8 heures que je travaille
- we do not say je travaille depuis 8 heures, it is too confusing, see the video.
3- EXERCISES: (the answer is in the video)
I have been reading all morning and I have just finished my book
He has been watching too much television lately
She has been talking for 2 hours
She has been talking since noun
I have been playing tennis for a long time
Fini!
ERRATUM: the word “noon” is misspelled in the video, sorry about that!
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7 Responses to “Present Perfect Continuous in French”
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- Chez: At HomeChez: Chez comes from a Latin word: Casa which means Home. Video here: With Nouns: Je vais chez Pierre: I am going to Pierre’s (home) Je vais chez le docteur: I am going to the doctor’s (not his home but his office of course) Je suis passé chez ma soeur: I dropped in on my […]
wow – thank you! this was great and makes a lot of sense now.
This was fabulous!
Merci Beaucoup!
thank you very much for your fantastic site which circulates all-world round disseminating your precious painstaking efforts in educating all interested people, i myself
got and still get very good french knowledge both theoretically and practically,thank you
again hoping every success in your mission,until seeing you again always happy online i
wish you all very good returns.Bye,AA
Excellent. That was very instructive and I feel I have learned a lot from it. Thankyou.
Imparfait was perfectly explained. It was really useful. Merci Bien!
C’est une bonne chose!C’est très utile pour apprendre le français..! Tu as bien fait. Merci bien! Bravo..:)
Your explanation is perfect! But I still have a question on “depuis”~
As you mentioned, “I have been learning French for 9 years” can be translated as “J’apprends le français depuis 9 ans” in French. But I wonder if this translation may lead to confusion… I mean, does the sentence “J’apprends le français depuis 9 ans” also mean “I have been learning French since 9 years old”? If there is indeed such confusion, how can we avoid it when we must use the word “depuis” and “an”?
Thank you very much in advance for your explanation! I’m really looking forward to it
Merci beaucoup!
Steve