Pour un an - French Mistake

Mistakes will always be made in French, and now you can learn from them.

Wrong? Pour un an

Right: Pendant un an

Explanation: The French preposition pour translates as "for," but when referring to time, you can only use it to talk about the future. So you can say Je serai en France pour un an (I'll be in France for a year) and Je vais étudier le français pour un semestre (I'm going to study French for one semester) but not "J'étais en France pour un an" or "J'ai étudié le français pour un semestre."

When talking about a period of time in the past, you have to use pendant instead:

   J'étais en France pendant un an.
   I was in France for a year.

   J'ai étudié le français pendant un semestre.
   I studied French for one semester.

   Nous avons parlé pendant des heures.
   We talked for hours.

You can also use pendant when talking about something in the future if you want to stress the length of time: Je vais travailler seulement pendant quatre heures aujourd'hui (I'm only going to work for four hours today).

In other words pendant can always be used, but pour can only be used in the future.

Related lessons:

• Temporal prepositions
• All about pour