Jorgo
Member
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2017
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Serbo-Croatian
- Home Country
- Europe
- Current Location
- Europe
I spoke with one lady who had spent 5 years living in Spain, but now she does not live there any more.
And I asked automatically " For how long have you lived IN Spain", but later I became precarious about grammatically correctness of my question, because I have been taught that preposition IN usually we use if the person still lives somewhere - in this case, in Spain.
For example: "For how long have you lived in London" - refers that person still lives in London.
On the contrary "I have been TO London many times" means that somebody has visited London but he/she does not live there any more.
In my case with Spain, did I ask this question correctly? Because she responded to me that she lived there (for) 5 years, and now she lives here. Should I have used past perfect in this case, like "For how long had you lived in Spain"(unsaid- before you left) ? Just saying "How long have you lived TO Spain" sounded odd to me. Likewise, using simple past in this case also doesn`t hold the water to me, because she has lived in Spain in some point of her life, and we don`t know when or some specific details about her stay in Spain, but we know that it lasted for the longer period of time.
Sorry if I created mambo-jumbo here, I keep my fingers crossed that you will manage to decipher my point.
Thanks in advance!
And I asked automatically " For how long have you lived IN Spain", but later I became precarious about grammatically correctness of my question, because I have been taught that preposition IN usually we use if the person still lives somewhere - in this case, in Spain.
For example: "For how long have you lived in London" - refers that person still lives in London.
On the contrary "I have been TO London many times" means that somebody has visited London but he/she does not live there any more.
In my case with Spain, did I ask this question correctly? Because she responded to me that she lived there (for) 5 years, and now she lives here. Should I have used past perfect in this case, like "For how long had you lived in Spain"(unsaid- before you left) ? Just saying "How long have you lived TO Spain" sounded odd to me. Likewise, using simple past in this case also doesn`t hold the water to me, because she has lived in Spain in some point of her life, and we don`t know when or some specific details about her stay in Spain, but we know that it lasted for the longer period of time.
Sorry if I created mambo-jumbo here, I keep my fingers crossed that you will manage to decipher my point.
Thanks in advance!
