Breakdown of Je prépare l'eau tiède en attendant qu'il finisse le pétrissage.
je
I
il
he
l'eau
the water
préparer
to prepare
finir
to finish
tiède
lukewarm
le pétrissage
the kneading
en attendant que
while waiting for / until (in the meantime)
Questions & Answers about Je prépare l'eau tiède en attendant qu'il finisse le pétrissage.
Why is finisse in the subjunctive here?
The conjunction en attendant que (while waiting for / until) always requires the subjunctive. This is because the action of him finishing the kneading hasn't happened yet, so it's treated as an anticipated or uncertain event rather than an established fact.
Could I use jusqu'à ce qu'il finisse instead of en attendant qu'il finisse?
Yes, grammatically you could use jusqu'à ce que (until), which also takes the subjunctive. However, en attendant que emphasizes what is happening in the meantime (while waiting for him to). Jusqu'à ce que focuses more purely on the end point in time.
How do we form the subjunctive for a regular -ir verb like finir?
You take the ils/elles form of the present indicative (ils finissent), drop the -ent to get the stem (finiss-), and add the subjunctive endings (-e, -es, -e, -ions, -iez, -ent). So for il, it becomes qu'il finisse.
Why can't we use the infinitive here, like en attendant de finir?
You must use en attendant que when there are two different subjects in the sentence. Here, the subjects are je (I prepare) and il (he finishes). If the same person were doing both actions (I prepare the water while waiting to finish), you would use the preposition de plus the infinitive: en attendant de finir.
Does tiède mean the same thing as chaude?
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