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La police cherche le tueur depuis un mois.

La police cherche le tueur depuis un mois.
The police have been looking for the killer for a month.
From Lesson 434:Professions and nationalities (il est / c'est un)·French

Questions & Answers about La police cherche le tueur depuis un mois.

Why is it La police cherche (singular) when the English translation says "The police have" (plural)?
In French, la police is a singular collective noun, so it takes the third-person singular verb form cherche. In English, the word police is treated as plural, which is why the translation says "have been" instead of "has been".
The English translation uses "have been looking". Why is the French verb cherche in the present tense?
When an action started in the past and is still ongoing, French uses the present tense combined with depuis (for or since). English uses the present perfect continuous for this, but French treats the action as something that is still happening right now, hence the present tense.
English says "looking FOR the killer". Why is there no preposition before le tueur?
The French verb chercher inherently means to look for or to seek. It takes a direct object, so you never add a preposition after it. You simply say chercher le tueur.
How would the current lesson's rule about professions apply to a noun like tueur?
Even though it is not a traditional job, nouns describing a person's role or status follow the same rules. If you wanted to say "He is a killer," you would typically use C'est un tueur because you are using a modified noun. Our sentence just uses it as a direct object, so we just say le tueur.

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