French word of the week: depuis

We’re back again to examine another French word for language learners. This week’s word is depuis. You can listen to the audio clip below to hear how to pronounce it:

If you’re a regular reader of our blogs, you might have seen a word that looks quite close to this one – puis, which means ‘next’ or ‘then’. With this in mind, you might already be trying to connect the dots to find a similar translation for depuis. However, as with all translations, you need to be careful! While these two French words are linked, their translations don’t look immediately similar. Depuis means since, for or from in English.

In terms of grammar, depuis is both a preposition and an adverb. If you need a little refresher, you can head to our Easy Learning French Grammar pages on common prepositions and adverbs which don’t end in -ment.

Depuis is most commonly used as a preposition, so we’ll look at examples of this to begin with:

Depuis quand… ? Since when…? 

depuis longtemps for a long time

depuis peu not long ago; very recently

Depuis combien de temps êtes-vous mariés ? How long have you been married for?

Nous travaillons dans ce restaurant depuis 2011. We’ve been working in this restaurant since 2011.

J’apprends le français depuis deux ans. I’ve been learning French for two years.

Depuis le quatorze avril, on n’habite plus à Barcelone. Since the fourteenth of April, we’ve no longer been living in Barcelona.

depuis… jusqu’à from… to

Mon frère étudie pour ses examens depuis 8 h jusqu’à 22 h. My brother studies for his exams from 8am until 10pm.

On est en train de voyager depuis Osaka jusqu’à Tokyo. We’re currently travelling from Osaka to Tokyo.

Ils nous appelleront depuis Marrakech. They’ll call us from Marrakech.

Less commonly, you might also see depuis used as an adverb. You’ll often find it used alongside verbs in the perfect tense to talk about something that’s happened in the past, and often with a negated verb:

Nous sommes allés une fois, mais nous ne sommes jamais retournés depuis. We went one time, but we’ve never been back since.

Je travaillais avec lui en 1999. On ne s’est pas revus depuis. I used to work with him in 1999. We’ve not seen each other since then.

Maybe it’s been a while since you started learning French, or maybe it’s something brand new to you – either way, we hope this blog has helped you improve your vocabulary and understanding! See you next time.

Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.

All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.