Learn French: Vous avez à peine dormi pendant ce cycle. - You barely slept during this cycle.

Vous avez à peine dormi pendant ce cycle.

You barely slept during this cycle.

Breakdown of Vous avez à peine dormi pendant ce cycle.

Questions & Answers about Vous avez à peine dormi pendant ce cycle.

Why is à peine placed between avez and dormi instead of at the end of the sentence?

In French compound tenses like the passé composé, short or common adverbs (as well as short adverbial phrases like à peine) are placed right between the auxiliary verb (avez) and the past participle (dormi).

I thought peine meant 'sadness' or 'effort'. How does it mean 'barely' here?

By itself, peine does mean sorrow, pain, or effort. However, when combined into the fixed phrase à peine, it translates to 'barely', 'hardly', or 'scarcely'.

Why do we use pendant here? Could I use pour to say 'for this cycle'?

Pendant is used to mean 'during' or 'for' when talking about the entire duration of an action, especially one in the past or present. You usually cannot use pour here, because pour is generally reserved for planned or projected future durations (like going away pour the weekend).

Why is it ce cycle instead of cet cycle or cette cycle?

Cycle is a masculine noun starting with a consonant, so it takes the standard masculine word for 'this', which is ce. You only use cette for feminine words, and cet is reserved for masculine words that start with a vowel or mute H (like cet ami).