Breakdown of Garder les enfants à l'écart pendant plusieurs heures.
l'enfant
the child
à
at / to / in (general locations) / about (what one thinks about / reacts to)
l'heure
the hour / o'clock (f)
garder
to keep
les
them (direct object pronoun)
pendant
for / during (duration)
plusieurs
several
l'écart
the distance (m)
Questions & Answers about Garder les enfants à l'écart pendant plusieurs heures.
Why is this sentence using the infinitive garder instead of the imperative gardez?
This is an impersonal command. Using the infinitive is standard in French for general instructions, recipes, manuals, and warning labels. It gives a neutral instruction to anyone reading it, whereas gardez addresses a specific person or group directly.
How does the phrase à l'écart work here?
Why do we use pendant instead of pour to say "for several hours"?
In French, pendant is the most common way to express the actual duration of an action, translating to "for" or "during". English speakers often overuse pour, but in French, pour is mostly reserved for a planned or scheduled future duration (like leaving on vacation for three weeks). For a general ongoing instruction like this, pendant is the correct choice.
Could we say plusieurs des heures instead of just plusieurs heures?
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