Present Continuous or Present Perfect?
There is a task in my Grammar book - put the verbs in brackets into the correct form. And there is a sentence:
"We____(stay) here for nealy a week. I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".
My version:
1. "We're staying here for nealy a week. I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".
My version is so, because for my prospective, the action started a few days ago, it's still happening around present moment, and it'll be happening some time in the futire (maybe several days).
But, in the key book for this task the sentence build as below:
2. "We have stayed here for nealy a week. I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".

Which of sentences are more natural for the native English? Can anyone help me to determine what's wrong, why I've was wrong?

Question

Present Continuous or Present Perfect?
There is a task in my Grammar book - put the verbs in brackets into the correct form. And there is a sentence:
"We____(stay) here for nealy a week. I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".
My version:
1. "We're staying here for nealy a week.  I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".
My version is so, because for my prospective, the action started a few days ago, it's still happening around present moment, and it'll be happening some time in the futire (maybe several days).
But, in the key book for this task the sentence build as below:
2. "We have stayed here for nealy a week.  I hope you'are not thinking of leaving".

Which of sentences are more natural for the native English? Can anyone help me to determine what's wrong, why I've was wrong?

Answer

Both versions are correct, but say different things.

Your version is saying the entire stay IN TOTAL will be 1 week. ie. From when you arrived to when you leave sometime in the future. So your answer is correct.

The grammar book's version is saying they have ALREADY stayed 1 week, but there is no indication how long they will be at the hotel in total. This is also correct, but slightly unnatural for me.
I would've made a small change and said, "We have ALREADY stayed here for nearly a week.  I hope you're not thinking of leaving".

If I had to choose between the grammar book's answer and yours, I personally think your answer is better.

Answer

"We have stayed here for nearly a week", would be the most logical, but it would be more natural to say, "We have been staying here for nearly a week." because it is an action that began in the recent past and still continues.

Answer

Grammatically, "for nearly a week" is an adverbial phrase which means something continues for some period of time. So, it is used with the present perfect tense here. （I mean "We have stayed".）/ On the contrary, the present progressive tense you used means something is happening just now, I mean only at this point of time. You don't know if it continued or will continue for some period of time. That's why it does not go along well with this adverbial phrase. / The answer in the key book is absolutely correct.

Answers · 4

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