"Hi, I haven't seen you in a long time!"

Translation: Coucou, ça fait longtemps que je ne t'ai pas vu !

[nj_smith]

Ok the exercise asked me to translate from english to french and I couldn't figure it out. The grammar is different between the translations, so what's the French literally saying? "It's been a long time that I haven't seen you?" Something like that?

[Jojo553168]

Yes you are right. An easier and more direct translation would be Je ne t'ai pas vu depuis longtemps.
I guess Duo wants you to learn the expression ça fait longtemps.

[Dave962976]

That's the BIG problem with Duo -- we have to GUESS what they are "trying to teach" us after the fact. Duo is hardly "the world's best way to learn" anything. It's mediocre at best.

[--Roody--]

I don't know. I feel that I've learned a lot. In my view, the purpose of these lessons is to actually teach the material through the means of having us translate. But you think they should teach the material first, and then test you by having you translate a sentence. So there are two ways of thinking about it.

[Don_Martino]

I think that Duo could be improved by making greater use of "Tips" to present relevant grammar and vocabulary lessons. On the other hand, my French is definitely getting better with Duo as-is. It is what it is. I've just gotten used to the fact that I'm going to learn by making mistakes. I.e., I'm going to see things for the first time while in the process of making mistakes.

[Daniel589120]

Coucou, je ne t'ai pas vu depuis longtemps. was just accepted FYI.

[debbos1]

Shouldn't it be je ne te vois pas?

[MandyB11]

That's the wrong tense. "I haven't seen you" is in the past. It's only when (as I understand it) pendant, depuis and the like are there that you use the present. E.g. I've been playing the violin for five years. Je joue du violon depuis 5 ans.
JoJo has given a shorter form above which is probably the better form to learn.

[BoSwicegood]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying. This exercise does use the word depuis. Please explain. Thanks.

[HasanBaria]

I wrote the first one and it was accepted

[mqkOaK9i]

What is wrong with 'je ne t'ai pas vu longtemps'?

[esther_mcmanus]

I have the same question!

[neko_sapiens]

Can the verb voir be in the simple present tense? I wrote Je ne te vois pas depuis longtemps, but it was rejected. I think I've seen a lot of examples in this course in which the simple present is used in French especially when accompanied by a depuis-phrase, where in English the verb is normally in the present perfect.

[Margot60998]

Why 'coucou' and not 'salut'?

[--Roody--]

Its a new way of saying the same thing. The same is true of ça fait longtemps.

[Scott495798]

I tried "Coucou, je ne t'ai pas vu ça fait longtemps !" because it seemed to correspond better to the given word order. Is it just not said that way in French?

[Diane859117]

Coucou is used when addressing someone you know very well.

[BjolR4A4]

Still no reason given why "Coucou, je ne t'ai pas vu longtemps" was rejected?

[Jeff406235]

Is there any formal reason why "fait" is prounounced "fay" in this usage but as "feht" in a construction like "au fait"?

[JenniferBe1810]

In this case it's the conjugation of the verb "faire" and when it's used in au fait, the "fait" is not a verb but a noun meaning "fact", so they're two different words not two different pronunciations of the same word.

[Jeff406235]

Terrific! Thanks for that.

[richard766850]

Do we need passe compose when depuis is used?