Examen oral DELF A1 : Présentation et dialogue

Why does French use the present tense with “depuis”?

English says “I have been learning French for three months.” French keeps the verb in the present and lets depuis carry the time: j’apprends le français depuis trois mois. The reasoning is that you are still learning, so the verb reports now, not the past. Reaching for a past tense — j’ai appris… depuis — is the standard English-speaker slip.

Depuis does two jobs: “for” with a length of time (depuis trois mois) and “since” with a starting point (depuis janvier, depuis 2019). Its opposite number is pendant, which covers a stretch that is over and done: j’ai étudié le français pendant trois mois means you stopped. Same three months, two very different stories.