Learn French: Au bout d'une semaine, elle n'a plus la patience de supporter ce collègue. - At the end of a week, she no longer has the patience to stand this colleague.

Au bout d'une semaine, elle n'a plus la patience de supporter ce collègue.

At the end of a week, she no longer has the patience to stand this colleague.

Breakdown of Au bout d'une semaine, elle n'a plus la patience de supporter ce collègue.

Questions & Answers about Au bout d'une semaine, elle n'a plus la patience de supporter ce collègue.

Why do we use au bout d' instead of à la fin de here?

While both can mean "at the end of", au bout de is used with a length of time to mean "after [a duration] has passed" (like waiting a whole week). You use à la fin de for the chronological end of a specific event or calendar period, like à la fin de la semaine to mean Friday or Sunday.

Does supporter mean "to support"?

Supporter is a classic false friend! While it can mean to physically support a weight, in everyday French it usually means "to tolerate", "to put up with", or "to stand" someone or something. If you want to say "to support" a person emotionally or financially, use the verb soutenir.

Since the sentence is negative (elle n'a plus), shouldn't la patience change to de patience?

Not in this case! The rule that changes articles to de in negative sentences only applies to indefinite (un, une, des) and partitive (du, de la, de l') articles. Here, we are using the definite article la, which stays exactly the same in the negative. She lacks the specific patience needed for this task.

Why do we need de before supporter?