In today’s lesson, we are going to have a look at the preposition phrase lors de, which means both “at the time of” and “during”. A French-to-French translation is au moment de (at the time of). Lors de is always followed by a time word or event. For example, lors de mes vacances (at the time of my vacation).
lors de
at the time of, during
Lors de – At the time of, during in French
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Word origin
According to Wiktionary.org, lors comes from illa hora in Latin, meaning “the hour”. In French, the preposition de means from or of. Hence, the literal translation based of lors de based on the Latin origin is “the hour of”.
Example sentences
For these first two example sentences, lors de can translate to both “during” and “at the time of”.
J’ai connu ma femme lors de mes vacances en France.
I met my wife during my vacation in France.
Lors de mon anniversaire, je faisais du ski en Autriche.
I was skiing in Austria at the time of my birthday.
For this example sentence, both lors de and pendant can be used to mean “during”.
Il a travaillé lors des deux dernières années.
He worked during the last two years.
Conclusion
Et voilà ! You now know how to use lors de in French. The words lors de and lorsque are related. Lorsque means “when” and is a conjunction word, connecting two phrases. This lesson on our site looks at both lorsque and quand (when).
