36 Comments
I got marked wrong for saying "I am living here for a long time." But isn't "живу" in present tense?
speaking as a learner, not an expert, it seems that the "for a long time" sense of долго seems to trump the immediacy of the present tense... "for a long time" necessarily bleeds backward into past, so the combination of the past leading up to the present seems better expressed in english as "have lived" or "have been living" rather than "live" or "am living".
Yeah I figured... and future tense would the the equivalent of my sentence?
I can't speak for the Russian as I am a learner, but I can say that I can't think of any situation where "I am living here for a long time" sounds natural in English. It just sounds wrong and therefore think it is not accepted
i live here for a long time sound oke to me. живу to me is present tense, past tense would be жил жила. if this is an exception than please can someone explain.
I am pretty sure that when one wants to indicate duration you have to use the present perfect and can not use the simple present, so "I live here for a long time" is wrong for that reason and should be "I have been living here for a long time" See http://www.edufind.com/english-grammar/present-perfect-and/
It's the same in the Romance languages e.g. in Spanish and French you use the present tense for this expression whereas in English the translation is in the past tense
Nah, in french it would be "Pendant longtemps je vivais ici" or "Pendant longtemps j'ai vécu ici", which is past tense. The present "Pendant longtemps je vis ici" would not be correct.
In french when it is finished you say "j'ai longtemps vecu ici" when it is allways the fact you say "je vis ici depuis longtemps"
Well in french we could also say "je vis ici depuis longtemps" which is present tense
This is not true. In Spanish and French, the passé compossé and the pretérito perfecto are used. Both are considered past tenses.
In spanish would be he vivido aqui mucho tiempo( i have lived here for a long time)
but also ''vivo aquí desde hace mucho tiempo'', so he is a bit right. And in French you can also say ''Je vis ici depuis longtemps''.
1742
This is really a comment for the course organizers. (Note that I can not get back to the other item to make this comment there.)
In the sentence "Том долго тут работает", the answer "Tom has worked here for a long time" was rejected and only "Tom has been living here a long time" was accepted. Just as "I have lived here for a long time." is a correct translation for this item, "Tom has worked here for a long time" should be for the other.
Simply put, yes. English also uses one of the four present tenses for this construction called the present perfect tense (For example: I have lived - see here http://www.easypacelearning.com/design/images/verbtenses.jpg). All of our English tenses do not exist in Russian, so this is made up for through other means.
- 1937
In general it's only for time, but there are some non-time cases that imply time where you can use it, like: впереди долгая дорога (there is a long road ahead).
In old Russian I think долгий could be used for physical length, but not today.
So, долго always extends back into the past and not to the future? Imagine someone asking you about your plans for the future. Since you have a low-paying job and you're stuck where you are for as long as you can tell, you might say sadly, "I'm living here for a long time." Or maybe you move to a beautiful place and you're as happy as can be. "I'm living here for a long time!" you say to yourself as you look around your home.
Both of these situations imply that the long time is in the future, even though you're speaking in the present tense. Can it ever work the same way in Russian?
In both cases you state, I would more likely say "I will be living here for a long time." Present tense doesn't sound natural.
It would be completely normal in Ireland to say 'I am living here for a long time.'.
I can't reply to other's replies or posts for some odd reason, so don't expect a reply :/
Would using the perfective of жить here imply that the speaker doesn't live there anymore?
- 34
I heard только and it would make sense, too... Should also be accepted in my opinion! (Yeah, I'm blaming the TTS)
- 1937
No. Translating between Russian and English tenses can be counter-intuitive for speakers and learners of both languages. I cannot give any general rule-based explanation, but in this example, if you say Я долго здесь жил, you mean that you are no longer living here, i.e. "I had been living here for a long time". To indicate that you are still living here, you need to use the present tense in both Russian and English—but English has more than one.
долго -- Л is more hard. it doesn't sound the same, after Л is Ь , that's why you should say Л very very soft толЬко
I think I have finally lost the will to live here for any longer time at all!
