since this fall

[Verona_82]

Hello!

Yesterday I corrected a friend of mine who said "I've had these shoes for this fall". I told her she should have used 'since' because she was talking about a starting point. No, she said, "I wanted to emphasize the duration". I couldn't find other words to explain the difference to her apart from what I told her. She doesn't understand why we say "I bought these shoes in September, I've had them for two and a half months" but cannot say "I've had them for this fall".

Dear teachers, please help me find good words to explain why 'for' doesn't work in the sentence above. Perhaps 'throughout' will?

I'd appreciate it if you could help.

[5jj]

Yesterday I corrected a friend of mine who said "I've had these shoes for this fall". I told her she should have used 'since' because she was talking about a starting point. No, she said, "I wanted to emphasize the duration". I couldn't find other words to explain the difference to her apart from what I told her. She doesn't understand why we say "I bought these shoes in September, I've had them for two and a half months" but cannot say "I've had them for this fall".

Dear teachers, please help me find good words to explain why 'for' doesn't work in the sentence above.

You have explained well. If she wants to emphasise the duration, she should use for with a time period. With a starting point we use since. That's it. End of story.

Some languages do not make this distinction; French and German, for example, use the same word for both situations. Does Russian?

Whether it does or not, English does, and your friend will have to accept this if she wants to speak the language correctly.

[Verona_82]

Thank you, fivejedjon!!
The only problem is that she - and lots of other Russian learners - think that 'this fall' - or this week, or this year etc - is a time period! We can translate the sentence into Russian two ways, the second one would indeed imply the duration. Perhaps telling her that a period must have the beginning and the end will help?

[5jj]

Thank you, fivejedjon!!
The only problem is that she - and lots of other Russian learners - think that 'this fall' - or this week, or this year etc - is a time period! We can translate the sentence into Russian two ways, the second one would indeed imply the duration. Perhaps telling her that a period must have the beginning and the end will help?

She is partly right, and my previous response was perhaps a little too simplistic. In a sentence such as 'I've had a lot of problems this fall', fall is a period.

We can uses phrases such as for the whole of this fall/the whole year. I don't feel that we can use for with simply this week, etc. We need something like all/the whole of before it becomes a period that can be used with for.

Without either for or since, we have natural sentences: I've had these shoes all year.

Incidentally, if we are still in the fall, we cannot say 'I've had these shoes since this fall'; that is only possible after the end of fall. If it is still fall, we would have to say, 'I've had these shoes since the beginning of fall'.

I rather fear that I may not have helped as much as I thought I was going to. Sorry.

[susiedq]

I have shoes for this fall and shoes for this summer.

Perhaps she meant that her plans are to wear the shoes for the upcoming fall season.

[Verona_82]

Hmm. From what was said above I can draw the following conclusions:

"I've had these shoes since this fall" -we're not in the fall anymore
"I've had these shoes for the whole fall" - we're not in the fall anymore

"I've had these shoes since the beginning of this fall" - we can be still in the fall.

Does that make sense?

[5jj]

Hmm. From what was said above I can draw the following conclusions:

"I've had these shoes since this fall" -we're not in the fall anymore. Correct
"I've had these shoes for the whole fall" - we're not in the fall anymore. No. The present perfect means we are still in the fall.

"I've had these shoes since the beginning of this fall" - we can be still in the fall. Yes. Indeed, we are still in the fall.

Does that make sense?

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