rayyan.21

[wooden bay]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[finite talon]

grammatically your sentence is good, but your tense is wrong.

depuis que j'avais dix ans implies that you are still 10 years old and not just still studying since you were 10 years old
It's simply not possible, to keep the consistency of something that is still happening, and started in one point in the past, and that point is not happening anymore, only the first half is still happening.

So when you're talking about something that happened in the past and is not connected to the present, you'd rather use passé compsé.

In that case J'y étudie depuis que j'ai dix ans.
(The bold part is the only part that started in the past, and is still happening as of today.)

[velvet kayak]

oh right, i see, thanks

this is a bit of a side question, but what effect does the que have in there

would J'y étudie depuis j'ai dix ans. still make sense?

[finite talon]

It's a conjunction, it's connecting j'y étudie with j'ai dix ans

(note that in that case, depuis que are glued together, you can't separate them.)

Think of something like I enjoyed that he could find out

that is clearly being used to connect "I enjoyed" with "he could find out"

(that is one of the possible translations for que, but not the only one, it could also be since which translates to depuis que)

[fluid kite]

note that in your example, you haven't used passé composé; both the main clause and the subordinate clause are in the present

incidentally, in English, the main clause would be in present perfect (continuous) [I have studied / I have been studying] and the subordinate clause in the simple past [I was 10 y.o.]

This is just a fundamental difference between English and French grammar
In this sort of construction, since is followed by the simple past in English, whereas in French depuis que gets followed by the present
It's a common error for native speakers of both languages who are learning the other language to mess up these structures and use the tense their native language would use

(so, for instance, my French students often say "Since I am 5 years old, blah blah blah")