Present tense with depuis...form to create past action?

Question

Why "Mon fils travaille (present tense) comme promeneur de chiens depuis quelques semaines" for has been working? and not "Mon fils a été travaillant comme promeneur de chiens quelques semaines"?

Chris Wirt · Accepted Answer

Yes, the first sentence is correct:
Mon fils travaille comme promeneur de chiens depuis quelques semaines. -- My son has been working as a dog walker for several weeks.
The present tense is used with depuis in many cases where in English you'd use perfect continuous tense. There's a lesson on this:
https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/how-you-use-depuis-since-for-with-le-present-and-not-le-passe-compose-prepositions-of-time
The construction a été travaillant is a literal translation from English and doesn't work in French at all. As a rule, try not to translate word by word and, instead, train yourself to think in French.