Prepositions
depuis with imperfect
The preposition depuis with the imperfect indicates how long something had been going on in relation to a past event. Basic sentence meaning and construction are similar to those of depuis with present. Depuis with imperfect may indicate either duration or a temporal starting point.
| what had been going on … | past event | translation |
| Tammy attendait Tex depuis une heure … | … quand il est entré. | Tammy had been waiting for Tex for an hour … when he came in. |
| Tammy souhaitait avoir une discussion sérieuse depuis lundi … | … quand enfin le moment s’est présenté. | Tammy had been wanting to have a serious discussion since Monday … when at last the opportunity presented itself. |
Duration may also be indicated with il y avait … que, cela faisait … que and, more emphatic, voilà que. The first sentence above could also be expressed as:
| l y avait … Cela faisait … Voilà … |
une heure que Tammy attendait Tex. | Tammy had been waiting for Tex for an hour. |
Listen to the dialogue:
| Tammy: Salut, Tex. Ça va? | Tammy: Hi Tex. How are you? | |
| Tex: Non! Hier, j’étais à la bibliothèque depuis deux minutes quand l’alarme à incendie a sonné. Je n’ai pas pu travailler! Ensuite à la caféteria, je faisais la queue depuis une demi- heure, lorsqu’ils ont annoncé qu’il n’y avait plus de sandwiches! Je suis allé faire cours sans avoir mangé! | Tex: Not well! Yesterday, I had been in the library for two minutes when the fire alarm went off. I was not able to work! Then at the cafeteria, I had been waiting in line for half an hour when they announced they had run out of sandwiches! I went to teach without eating! | |
| Tammy: Pour moi non plus, rien ne va comme je veux! Depuis lundi je voulais te parler, mais ce matin tu as dit que tu avais trop de travail! | Tammy: Nothing is going the way I want either! I had been wanting to talk to you since Monday, but this morning you said you had too much work! |
