A grammar question, even if I'm probably not the fisrt to ask it.
Is one of the following sentences wrong? If they are both right, what's the difference between them ?
- I have lived here for ten years.
- I have been living here for ten years.
Thank you in advance for your explanations
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Answers · 3
2
(I"m a U.S. native speaker). They are both perfectly correct. Either they have exactly the same meaning, or the difference is so subtle that I'm not explain it. When listening or reading you can assume they mean the same thing; when writing or speaking you can use whichever seems more comfortable to you.
When I hear "I have lived here for ten years" I think of the period of time. I might expect the next sentence to be something like "I used to live in Wisconsin, but I moved here in 2006 when I got a job in St. Paul."
When I hear "I have been living here for ten years" I think of the process of living. I might expect the next sentence to be something like "I always enjoy the mockingbirds in the spring" or "I've found they do a good job on street repairs."
However, another native speaker might not agree with me!
2
The meanings are the same and they are both OK. Normally, you can't choose between the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous at will, but with verbs like "work" and "live", you often can.
The present perfect simple focuses on a result up to the present.
The present perfect continuous focuses on the nature of the activity up to and continuing in the present.
For "work" and "live", the result is often the activity itself and so you can express the same idea in two ways.
0
They both are right and can be used interchangebly. However there is a small difference.
Lets say you spent 10 years of your life in Paris and then moved to Lille, when you go back to Paris you can tell someone that you have lived there for 10 years. This may or may not mean that you still live in Paris
But when you say you have been living in Paris for 10 years it means that you are still living in Paris and not in some other place
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