# FR: Tant que j'étais chez eux, il a fait affreusement chaud [sic]



## Curt Jugg

I am puzzled by the use of the tenses in the following sentence from my grammar textbook. I have looked at the threads on this forum dealing with tenses but haven't been able to find the answer. The sentence in question is:


"Tant que j'étais chez eux, il a fait affreusement chaud."


The sentence is intended to illustrate the use of the conjunction "tant que" and is translated in the textbook as "While (ie all the time) I was with them it was terribly hot." I am familiar with the use of tenses where the imperfect  describes a situation in the middle of which something happens and where what happens is then put in the perfect (or preterite) tense. But that is not the situation described in this sentence, because here the period during which the person was with them is coterminous with the period when it was terrribly hot. So I would have expected that both verbs would have been in the imperfect (or both in the perfect - I'm not sure which).

I'd be very grateful if someone could explain the use of the tenses in this sentence, please.


----------



## Moteur

"_Tant que_" does indeed mean "_while_" in the sense you describe. For example, one would say"_Il faut que tu en profites tant que tu peux_" (_"You must make the most of it while you can_"). It is used in the sentence you give to denote that the suject was staying with other people for a period of time. I believe what is implied in the use of the perfect instead of the imperfect tense, however, is that it became hot at some point during their stay (and this only happened once)  rather than describing a state which already existed when they arrived.  In the latter case the imperfect would be the correct tense to use. To illustrate what I mean consider the sentence "_Tant que j'étais chez vous, j'ai perdu mon portefeuille_" ("_While I was staying with you I lost my wallet_" i.e. "_I lost my wallet sometime during the period when I was staying with you"_).

*But *see my post (#6) below ...


----------



## TitTornade

Hi,
This sentence doesn't sound very natural to me... I can't exactly feel its meaning... 
Passé composé sounds weird here... Imperfect would be better to my mind... But using "tant que" is weird too...
Il faisait affreusement chaud quand j'étais chez eux !


----------



## Moteur

If the sentence is trying to express what I think the author means then I agree that it does sound _slightly_ unnatural - perhaps it would be better in that case to say "_il est devenu chaud quand j'étais chez eux_". However_, tant que_ can be used in quite a number of idiomatic ways. Have a look and see whether your book was written by a native French speaker or not - and also how old it is. This might explain the way the author has chosen to express a certain idea.


----------



## geostan

_*Tant que*_ is a time conjunction here. A reasonable translation is *As long as*. In this instance and without more context, I think the passé composé is more appropriate. I suspect however, that alternative phrasing is available. * Pendant mon séjour chez eux, il a fait affreusement chaud.*


----------



## Moteur

_Tant que_ can mean _while_ in this sense, but I would argue the sentence doesn't appear to be one which would be translated into English in this way. "_As long as I was with you it was hot_" is not something one would typically say. An alternative (and probably better) explanation than the one I suggested earlier for using the perfect rather than imperfect tense here can be found in this thread: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=384635.


----------



## Curt Jugg

Thanks for your replies, Moteur, TitTornade and geostan.

The textbook in question (2008 edition) was written by Glanville Price, Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Wales, so not a native speaker, and
the sentence was contrasted with another sentence, introduced by the conjunction "pendant que":  "Pendant que j'étais en Espagne j'ai visité l'Escurial". 

Of the two sentences Price says: "_Pendant que_ 'while' and _tant que_ '(for) as long as' are both temporal conjunctions but whereas _pendant que_ merely indicates an action during the course of which something else happens, _tant que_ refers to an action throughout the whole time of which something else happens." 

The two time situations are clearly meant to be different yet the tense contrasts (imperfect/perfect) are the same in both cases, which is what puzzled me.


----------



## Moteur

Thanks for your acknowledgement to contributors to this thread.

If do a Google search on *"Tant que j'étais"*  (including quotation marks to specify you are looking for pages which  include the entire phrase) you will find lots of useful contemporary  examples regaring it's usage - but ALWAYS check the source carefully to  see if they have been written by a native French speaker or are not in  fact just computer translations, which are often inaccurate.

I  find Price's book can often be a little "too correct" and (even though  revised several times) has been in print now for quite some time. It's  therefore a good idea to sometimes check what current French usage would  be. Even though it's quite a weighty tome it obviously cannot also cover all  situations - just think how big a book you would get if you printed out  all the infomation available on _Wordreference _!! It would clearly be unnatural to translate "_Tant que_" into English as "_As long as_" rather than simply "_While_" in the example you gave, although in other cases the reverse would be true.


----------



## geostan

Curt,

I see nothing wrong with the text's interpretation of the sentence with pendant que, but like you I am equally puzzled by the example with tant que. To merely change the conjunction while using the same tense makes no sense to me. Perhaps MC can shed some light on this anomaly.


----------



## Moteur

I think that can be explained with reference to the point I made earlier (posts #2 and #6), but some further input from a native French speaker would be most welcome here.


----------



## Maître Capello

I agree with TitTornade and Geostan: the passé composé isn't natural. Besides, _tant que_ is not the best choice in that context; _pendant que_ would be more common, actually! By the way, the other sample sentence (the one with _pendant que_) isn't quite what I would naturally say either. (I'd simply say _quand_ instead of _pendant que_.) In short, I'm afraid you cannot fully trust your textbook…

While I was with them it was terribly hot. → _Pendant que j'étais chez eux, il faisait terriblement chaud._

_tant que, aussi longtemps que_ = as long as
_pendant que_ = while, during

Here are hopefully better examples:

_Tant que je faisais régulièrement du tennis, j'étais en forme._ = As long as I regularly played tennis, I was fit.
_Pendant que je prenais mon bain, le téléphone s'est mis à sonner._ = While I was having a bath, the telephone rang.


----------



## Curt Jugg

Thanks Maítre Capello (and again to geostan and Moteur). It's heartening to find that the fault lies with the construction of the sentence rather than my understanding!


----------



## Moteur

As I know someone who works in academia and offered to contact Professor Price on my behalf, I now have a definite answer to your question. I hope he will not mind me quoting directly from his response, which they forwarded to me :

"I explain this as referring to a specific, defined, complete period of  past time, as in _Il a fait affreusement chaud hier_, not to a  descriptive comment  on what the weather was like during a certain, not specifically defined  period, as in _Il faisait chaud hier_."

This certainly  makes sense to me, and is essentially the same explanation as that given in the thread to which I posted (#6)  a link above.

Unfortunately, examples in grammar books - which  with good reason are, like dictionaries, always conservative in nature - can sometimes be quite formal and not necessarily something you would hear that often in spoken French. Whether this example is in fact so, however, I'm  not sure. You would have to survey a representative sample of native  French speakers in order to find out, and in this respect it's always worth bearing in mind  that you can't always rely on the comments posted by only a few people  on WR being correct.

I think it's also worth pointing out that in my opinion Price's book  is by far the best and most exhaustive French grammar available, and I personally  wouldn't be without my own copy (of which I've now owned most edtions).


----------



## Curt Jugg

I'm grateful to you, Moteur, for taking the trouble to contact the source himself. I wonder, though, why the imperfect, rather than the perfect, of "être" was used in the first clause.


----------



## Maître Capello

Since _tant que_ implies a state of a certain duration, the passé composé is inappropriate. You need the imparfait. Actually, I cannot find any examples where the passé composé would be appropriate in a _tant que_ clause.


----------



## Curt Jugg

I see. Thanks, MC.


----------



## Moteur

Maître Capello said:


> Since _tant que_ implies a state of a *certain duration* _tant que_ clause.



Well now I AM confused!! I don't think there can be any doubt about using the _imparfait_ immediately after _Tant que_ ... but surely the Prof's reason for using the _passé composé_ is precisely because IT DOES refer to a period *of a specific length*, or am I missing something here??

In the thread to which I referred above, this is the reason given for saying _il a fait chaud_ instead of _il faisait chaud_. The point is one of subtle emphasis, is it not??


----------



## Maître Capello

You forgot to highlight the word *state* in “a *state* of a certain duration.” See the numerous threads about the imparfait vs. passé composé.


----------



## Moteur

Sorry, could you clarify whether this means you agree or disagree with my last post? I presume it is the former as the first example from the list of threads you have posted a link to makes a similar point to the one I posted a link to   earlier.


----------



## geostan

I agree that the passé composé looks odd in the tant que clause, but the imperfect looks strange as well since we are not selecting a part of the time of the visit during which the heat wave took place. Am I to understand that the imperfect is correct in both time clauses (pendant que and tant que), but that the difference lies in the semantic meaning of the conjunctions? If so, this is a new one for me.????


----------



## Maître Capello

Curt Jugg said:


> Of the two sentences Price says: "_Pendant que_ 'while' and _tant que_ '(for) as long as' are both temporal conjunctions but whereas _pendant que_ merely indicates an action during the course of which something else happens, _tant que_ refers to an action throughout the whole time of which something else happens."


Price's wording is confusing and everything he says is not entirely correct. _Tant que_ cannot refer to a (single) action/event; it must refer to a state or habit. His sample  sentence is therefore wrong because he used the passé  composé. The passé composé is indeed inappropriate in this case, both in the  subordinate clause and the main clause; the imparfait should be used in both clauses._

Tant que j'étais chez eux, il a fait affreusement chaud._ 
_Tant que j'étais chez vous, j'ai perdu mon portefeuille._ 

Besides, his translations of _pendant que_ and _tant que_ are not incorrect but they give the false impression that _pendant que_ should always be translated as "while" and _tant que_ as "(for) as long as".

Finally, his claim that "_pendant que_ merely indicates an action during the course of which something else happens" is also incorrect. More precisely, it is not incorrect to say that _pendant que_ *can* indicate such an action during the course of which something else happens, but it is not necessarily the case. It can also have a meaning similar to _tant que_ or _durant_ depending on context.



Moteur said:


> surely the Prof's reason for using the _passé composé_ is precisely because IT DOES refer to a period *of a specific length*, or am I missing something here??


Just forget what the professor wrote. His sentence is incorrect. Also, the imparfait does not necessarily imply that the period of time is unspecified. Likewise, a period of specific length doesn't necessarily require the passé composé.

The  choice between the imparfait and passé composé is a very tricky  question for non-natives. It is hard for us natives to be able to  explain it to you in a simple way…  (It is actually just as hard as it is for English natives to explain  the usage difference between the simple past and the present perfect to French natives.)



geostan said:


> the imperfect looks strange as well since we are  not selecting a part of the time of the visit during which the heat wave  took place. Am I to understand that the imperfect is correct in both  time clauses (pendant que and tant que), but that the difference lies in  the semantic meaning of the conjunctions? If so, this is a new one for  me.????


Yes, it is a matter of semantics.

_Tant que X, Y_ → For the whole duration of X, Y was true / While/As long as X was true, so was Y.
_Pendant que X, Y_ → During X / While X was happening/true, Y happened/was happening/was true.

_*Tant que* j'*étais* chez eux, j'*avais* terriblement chaud._ → While I was with them, I was terribly hot (for the whole duration of my stay, and I was most likely no longer hot after I left).
_*Tant que* j'*avais* de l'argent, je ne me *faisais* jamais de soucis._ → As long as I had money, I never worried.
_*Tant que* je *mangeais* des légumes chaque jour, j'*étais* en bonne santé._ → As long as I ate vegetables every day, I was in good health.

_*Pendant que* j'*étais* chez eux, j'*ai eu* terriblement chaud._ → While I was with them, I became terribly hot (at some point during my stay).
_*Pendant que* j'*étais* chez eux, j'*avais* terriblement chaud._ → While I was with them, I was terribly hot (most likely for the whole duration of my stay, but nothing is said or implied regarding how I felt after I left).
_*Pendant que* je *prenais* mon bain, le téléphone *a sonné*. → _While I was having a bath, the telephone rang.
_*Pendant que* je *prenais* mon bain, le voisin *a tondu* la pelouse. → _While I was having a bath, my neighbor mawed the lawn. (I had a bath, and, during that time, my neighbor mawed the lawn.)
_*Pendant que* je *prenais* mon bain, le voisin *tondait* la pelouse. → _While I was having a bath, my neighbor was mawing the lawn. (I was having a bath and, at the same time, my neighbor was mawing the lawn.)


----------



## Moteur

Maître Capello said:


> The  choice between the imparfait and passé composé is a very tricky  question for non-natives.



Yes, I wasn't saying what *I* would use here. Perhaps because I studied in France I would instinctively use the _imparfait_ without even giving it a second thought, so I was merely trying to explain why it had been used in the example given.

Thanks for posting such a thorough explanation. I'll give it some further thought.


----------



## Curt Jugg

Can I just raise another question? If I have understood correctly, there seems to be agreement here that "tant que" should only be followed by the imperfect, but when googling "tant que j'ai été" I get millions of hits. What  am I missing here?


----------



## Moteur

Maître Capello said:


> _Tant que X, Y_ → For the whole duration of X, Y was true / While/As long as X was true, so was Y.
> _Pendant que X, Y_ → During X / While X was happening/true, Y happened/was happening/was true.



So, if you consult _Larousse_ on this, you will see that they say "_tant que"_ can mean *either* _"while"_ in the the sense of _"as long as"_ *or* _"while"_ in the sense of _"during"_ (= _"pendant que_") and give examples of its use in both cases. In the _TLF_ (§ I.C.3) this usage is also described, with the usual literary example.

There would seem, therefore, to be some confusion in this thread between what it is *usual* to say and what it is *possible* to say.

To emphasise this point, I am merely going to cite a well-known aphorism of that famous London detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes :

_"*When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.*"_


----------



## Moteur

Curt Jugg said:


> ... but when googling "tant que j'ai été" I get millions of hits.



This is quite interesting as I haven't actually come across examples of this before, and although many of the hits on Google are from older literature (some of it very old indeed) I have found a couple within the first three pages of results which are definitely not - in fact one is from a blog on the website of _Le Monde_ from 2014. Both cases, however, are ones in which _"Tant que = As long as"_. It seems that _"it may be rare but it's out there"_ is a truism in this instance.


----------



## Maître Capello

Moteur said:


> So, if you consult _Larousse_ on this, you will see that they say "_tant que"_ can mean *either* _"while"_ in the the sense of _"as long as"_ *or* _"while"_ in the sense of _"during"_ (= _"pendant que_") and give examples of its use in both cases.


The example Larousse provides is _Dépêchons-nous d'en profiter tant qu'il fait beau_. In that example, _tant que_ does mean "while", but it doesn't mean "during".  The general meaning of the phrase is "while the weather is nice" or rather "before the  weather turns rough."



> In the _TLF_ (§ I.C.3) this usage is also described, with the usual literary example.


The example mentioned in the TLFi is actually a set phrase: _tant que + y être_ is an idiomatic expression. In that case, _tant que j'y suis_ is synonymous with _pendant que j'y suis_.



Curt Jugg said:


> If I have understood correctly, there seems to  be agreement here that "tant que" should only be followed by the  imperfect, but when googling "tant que j'ai été" I get millions of hits.  What  am I missing here?


Google hits are very often  unreliable as it has been discussed countless times on our forums… When googling the phrase you mentioned, I actually get less than two hundred  hits, definitely not millions! 

As to the few examples I get, not even all of them are relevant. Some are clearly written by non-natives. Some have a totally different meaning, e.g., _Je l'aimais tant _(= _tellement_ = so much)_ que _(= that)_…_ Among those that correspond to the meaning we are talking about, most sound odd or dated as already suggested by Moteur. They would be more natural (at least to me) in  the imparfait.

That being said, I must admit that a few of those examples are fine in the passé  composé. In those cases the passé composé is typically used in both the main clause and the subordinate clause. Here is such an example:

_Tant que j'ai été consul, je me suis débattu._


----------



## Curt Jugg

Thanks for clearing that up for me, MC. I said "millions" because when I googled the phrase the first page of hits was headed with the words: "About 6,970,000 results", but I must confess I didn't give any consideration to how reliable such search results are.


----------



## Moteur

Maître Capello said:


> In that example, _tant que_ does  mean "while", but it doesn't mean "during".  The general meaning of the  phrase is "while the weather is nice" or rather "before the  weather  turns rough."



Surely the SENSE in which _"tant que"_ is used here does mean _"pendant que"_, if not *exactly* translated as _"during"_ in the example given ? _Larousse_ makes this absolutely clear because it uses the phrase _"pendant que"_, or are you saying this is incorrect ?? It certainly does *not* mean _"while"_ in the sense of _*as long as*_ when translated into English :

_We'd better hurry and make use of it *while* the weather's fine_ =>

_We'd better hurry and make use of it *as long as* the weather's fine _ 
_We'd better hurry and make use of it *during the period when* the weather's fine  _



Maître Capello said:


> In those cases the passé composé is typically used in both the main clause and the subordinate clause



which in fact just goes back to what was said above about the tenses in each clause having to agree, so therefore _imparfait_ *or* _passé composé_.



Maître Capello said:


> I must admit that a few of those examples are fine in the passé  composé



So  can you say why it is this sounds fine, as I presume the phrases on the _Le Monde_ website and in this blog (below) also do, whereas others only did so using the _imparfait_ ?

_"Pourtant, tant que j’ai été à bonne portée (aujourd’hui je suis à l’autre bout du monde) ça n’a pas baissé"_

_"tant que j'ai été en bonne santé, mon optimisme ne m'a jamais lâchée"_

(I  didn't quote examples I posted links to above as I wasn't sure if this  was an infringement of copyright or not, but am taking *Maître Capello*'s lead)


----------



## Maître Capello

Moteur said:


> Surely the SENSE in which _"tant que"_ is used here does mean _"pendant que"_, if not *exactly* translated as _"during"_ in the example given ? _Larousse_ makes this absolutely clear because it uses the phrase _"pendant que"_, or are you saying this is incorrect ??


There is a nuance between _tant que_ and _pendant que_. They cannot be *exact* synonyms.

_Dépêchons-nous d'en profiter *tant qu'*il fait beau_. → while the weather is *still* nice, before the (expected) bad weather comes
_Dépêchons-nous d'en profiter *pendant qu'*il fait beau_. → while the weather is nice, now that the weather is nice

_Tant que_ implies that the weather will turn bad in the near future, while _pendant que_ just talks about the current weather but doesn't imply anything about the future. In other words, _pendant que_ is exactly equivalent to _during [the time when]_, but _tant que_ isn't.



> So  can you say why it is this sounds fine, as I presume the phrases on the _Le Monde_ website and in this blog (below) also do, whereas others only did so using the _imparfait_ ?
> _"Pourtant, tant que j’ai été à bonne portée (aujourd’hui je suis à l’autre bout du monde) ça n’a pas baissé"_
> _"tant que j'ai été en bonne santé, mon optimisme ne m'a jamais lâchée"_


It is hard to say why or when it sounds fine… It really depends on the full context. In the two above examples, I'd still use the imparfait… or rephrase the sentences!


----------



## Moteur

Maître Capello said:


> They cannot be *exact* synonyms.



Yes, I didn't mean to suggest that they were - only that there is some *overlap* in meaning/usage.



Maître Capello said:


> _Dépêchons-nous d'en profiter *tant qu'*il fait beau_. → while the weather is *still* nice, before the (expected) bad weather comes
> ...
> 
> _Tant que_ implies that the weather will turn bad in the near future



This is the sense in which I understood this, and most English speakers would too - in fact you needn't bother saying _"still_" as this is *implied*, but of course it is often done so to add emphasis to a statement.


----------



## Moteur

Just an update on mixing tenses with _"quand"_. A search on Google for _"il a fait beau quand j'y étais"_ (remember to include quotation marks so Google looks for the complete phrase) yielded just two results, one of which was almost certainly written by a native French speaker - but of course that does not mean to say it was good French!


----------



## Curt Jugg

Moteur said:


> Just an update on mixing tenses with _"quand"_. A search on Google for _"il a fait beau quand j'y étais"_ (remember to include quotation marks so Google looks for the complete phrase) yielded just two results, one of which was almost certainly written by a native French speaker - but of course that does not mean to say it was good French!


 That's interesting.



Maître Capello said:


> The choice between the imparfait and passé composé is a very tricky question for non-natives.


 I can certainly confirm that!


----------



## henri0331

I'd say: "Tandis que j'étais chez eux, il faisait affreusement chaud"

Regards


----------



## Moteur

To summarise (in consultation with* Maître Capello* for whose input I am very grateful) what seems to have been the consensus of opinion amongst contributors to this thread : 

The example on the use of « tant que » from *A Comprehensive French Grammar (6th Edition)* by *Granville Price* (§ 696) could be misleading.

In general speech, the *imparfait tense* would typically be used in *both main and subordinate clauses*, but it is *not wholly incorrect* to use the *passé composé in both*  instead. Contemporary examples of this can be found in written, if not  spoken French. However, is difficult for non-native speakers to judge  whether or not use of the passé composé is permissable (which is  dependent on context) or sounds completely wrong, and so is *best avoided*.

The sense in which « tant que » is typically used is to mean _while = as long as_ (which implies that to some extent the state/action described in one of the clauses it connects is *conditional upon* that in the other) :

« Tant que nous sommes ensemble, je suis heureux » => _While* we are together I'm happy_

« Elle était heureuse tant qu'ils étaient ensemble » => _She was happy while* they were together_

* or _a__s long as_

but it can in *some* circumstances be used in a similar sense to « pendant que » meaning _while = during_ (which *does not* necessarily imply an element of contingency between the states/actions described).

In the latter sense, the entry for « tant que » in the _TLFi_ (§ I.C.3 under « Tant ») is an _*idiom*_, and therefore not one from which any general conclusions can be made regarding its use in a wider context. The example in _Larousse_ is possibly clearer.

It is probably wise for *all but the most experienced non-native speakers* to adopt the *standard* meanings of « tant que » and « pendant que »  when translating English into French, but of course be aware that  alternatives are possible (and indeed sometimes necessary) in the  reverse direction.

So in this case, _Caveat scriptor —_ "May the writer beware" !!


----------



## Curt Jugg

henri0331 said:


> I'd say: "Tandis que j'étais chez eux, il faisait affreusement chaud"
> 
> Regards


Thanks, henri.


----------



## Curt Jugg

Useful summary, Moteur. Thanks.


----------



## Moteur

Curt Jugg said:


> Useful summary, Moteur. Thanks.



Thanks - I hope that after a fair amount of debate you are at least a little clearer on this issue!


----------

