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Je travaille depuis le matin.

Je travaille depuis le matin.
I have been working since the morning.
FromLesson 8inHardcore French

Breakdown of Je travaille depuis le matin.

je
I
travailler
to work
le matin
the morning
depuis
since

Questions & Answers about Je travaille depuis le matin.

Why is the present tense used in "Je travaille depuis le matin" instead of a perfect or continuous tense?
In French, when you want to describe an action that started in the past and is still ongoing, you typically use the present tense combined with a time expression like depuis. Even though English might use a form like "I have been working," French simply uses "Je travaille" to indicate that the working began in the morning and continues in the present.
What role does the word depuis play in the sentence?
Depuis specifies the starting point of the ongoing action. In this sentence, it tells us that the work began "from the morning." It indicates duration—highlighting that the action started at a particular moment in the past (the morning) and is still happening now.
Why is the definite article le used in "le matin" instead of an indefinite article?
In French, parts of the day such as le matin (the morning), l’après-midi (the afternoon), and le soir (the evening) customarily use the definite article. This is idiomatic and conveys a general period of time rather than a specific instance. So "le matin" implies the period of the morning rather than one particular morning.
If I wanted to say "since this morning" instead of just "since morning," how would I modify the sentence?
To specify "this morning," you would add ce before matin and say "Je travaille depuis ce matin." The word ce means "this," which points to the current morning as the exact starting point of the ongoing action.
How does depuis differ from other time expressions like pendant when describing time in French?
Depuis is used to indicate a starting point in the past for an action that is still in progress, whereas pendant is used to indicate a duration for actions that are entirely completed. In the sentence "Je travaille depuis le matin," depuis correctly conveys that the work began in the morning and continues to the present. Using pendant would be inappropriate here because it typically describes a fixed, finished period of time.
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“How does grammatical gender work in French?”
Every French noun is either masculine or feminine, and this affects the articles and adjectives used with it. "Le" is used with masculine nouns and "la" with feminine ones. Adjectives also change form to match — for example, "petit" (masc.) becomes "petite" (fem.).

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