Je travaille depuis le matin.

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Breakdown of Je travaille depuis le matin.

• 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.