Depuis, pendant, il y a: talking about duration and "ago"

J'habite ici depuis trois ans.I've lived here for three years.

French has three different ways to talk about time and duration, and each answers a different question: depuis says a situation is still going on, pendant gives the length of a bounded stretch of time, and il y a counts back to a point in the past. Once you know which question each one answers, choosing between them gets much easier.

Quick shortcut: depuis = still going on, present tense. pendant = a bounded stretch of time, any tense. il y a = a point in the past, counted back from now ("ago").

Depuis: a situation that's still going on

Depuis ("since", "for") describes something that started in the past and is still true right now. Because the situation is ongoing, French uses the present tense — not a past tense, even though English says have been + -ing:

• J'habite à Paris depuis trois ans. (I've lived in Paris for three years.)
• Elle travaille ici depuis 2020. (She's worked here since 2020.)
• Nous attendons depuis une heure. (We've been waiting for an hour.)

Depuis works both with a duration (depuis trois ans — for three years) and with a point in time (depuis 2020 — since 2020); the present tense stays the same either way.

✅ J'habite ici depuis trois ans (still living here — present tense), never ❌ J'ai habité ici depuis trois ans — using a past tense with depuis is one of the most common mistakes for English speakers, since English marks this exact meaning with a compound past form.

Pendant: a bounded stretch of time

Pendant ("for", "during") gives the length of a bounded, delimited stretch of time — but on its own, it doesn't say whether that time is over or still connected to now; that comes from the tense of the verb, not from pendant itself. It pairs naturally with any tense, past, present, or future:

• J'ai habité à Lyon pendant deux ans. (I lived in Lyon for two years.) — past tense, so it's finished
• Elle a travaillé ici pendant six mois. (She worked here for six months.)
• Je travaillerai ici pendant trois ans. (I'll work here for three years.) — future, not finished at all
• Pendant les vacances, on va à la mer. (During the holidays, we go to the seaside.)

The real contrast with depuis isn't past versus future — it's whether the sentence marks the situation as ongoing from a starting point (depuis) or simply states how long a bounded stretch lasts (pendant), leaving whether it continues to the surrounding tense: ✅ J'habite ici depuis trois ans (still living here — depuis itself signals that) versus ✅ J'ai habité ici pendant trois ans (lived there for three years — pendant just gives the length; it's the past tense, not pendant, that shows it's over).

Il y a: a point in the past ("ago")

Il y a + a length of time means ago — it counts back from right now to a specific point in the past:

• Il y a deux jours, j'ai vu Marie. (Two days ago, I saw Marie.)
• Elle est arrivée il y a une heure. (She arrived an hour ago.)
• J'ai commencé ce travail il y a six mois. (I started this job six months ago.)

This is the same il y a that means there is / there are — but with a length of time instead of a noun, it means something completely different. Context makes the two easy to tell apart: il y a un problème (there's a problem) versus il y a une heure (an hour ago).

Il y a meaning "ago" almost always pairs with a past tense, since it's naming a point in the past, not something still ongoing:

• ✅ Il y a un an, j'ai déménagé. (A year ago, I moved.)

Telling the three apart

Common mistakes

• ❌ J'ai habité ici depuis trois ans. → ✅ J'habite ici depuis trois ans. (the situation is still going on, so depuis takes the present tense)
• ❌ Je travaille ici pendant trois ans meaning it's still going on → ✅ Je travaille ici depuis trois ans. (pendant doesn't signal an ongoing situation the way depuis does)
• ❌ Il y a deux jours, j'habite à Paris → ✅ Il y a deux ans, j'ai déménagé à Paris. (il y a names a point in the past, so it needs a past-tense event, not an ongoing present-tense state)

Quick check

Choose depuis, pendant, or il y a.

1. J'apprends le français ____ deux ans. (still learning)
2. Elle a vécu au Canada ____ cinq ans. (finished, no longer there)
3. ____ trois jours, il a commencé à pleuvoir. (a point in the past)
4. Nous habitons ici ____ 2018. (still living here)

Key takeaways

• Depuis ("since"/"for") describes a situation still going on now — French uses the present tense, unlike English's have been + -ing.
• Pendant ("for"/"during") gives the length of a bounded, delimited stretch of time and works with any tense — it doesn't itself say whether the situation is over; the tense does that.
• Il y a + a length of time means ago — it counts back to a point in the past, and pairs with a past tense.
• The same depuis and pendant work whether the time expression is a duration (depuis trois ans) or, for depuis, a starting point (depuis 2020).
• Il y a meaning "ago" is the same word as il y a meaning "there is/are" — context (a noun vs. a length of time) tells them apart.