Breakdown of Il a fait trois kilomètres en cinq minutes.
il
he
avoir
to have
faire
to do, to make
trois
three
cinq
five
la minute
the minute
en
in (duration of completion)
le kilomètre
the kilometer
Questions & Answers about Il a fait trois kilomètres en cinq minutes.
Why use en here instead of dans?
In French, en is used to express the amount of time it takes to complete an action. Because it took him exactly five minutes to finish the distance, we use en. If you used dans, it would mean the action starts in the future (for example, Il va le faire dans cinq minutes means he will start doing it five minutes from now).
Could I use pendant instead of en in this sentence?
It would sound unnatural here. Pendant (for/during) focuses on the time spent doing an activity, without necessarily finishing a goal, like in Il a couru pendant cinq minutes (He ran for five minutes). Because this sentence is about completing a specific target (three kilometers), en is the correct preposition to show the time it took to reach that finish line.
Why use a fait instead of a specific verb like ran or walked?
Just like in English, using faire (to do) is a very natural and common way to talk about covering a distance or completing a route in French. You could definitely use a couru (ran) or a conduit (drove) to emphasize how he traveled, but a fait focuses simply on the achievement of completing the distance.
Why is this sentence in the passé composé (a fait) rather than the imparfait (faisait)?
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