It has been 3 years since she was a teacher.

[lagoo]

It has been 3 years since she was a teacher.

The author tells us that it means it is 3 years after she quit working as a teacher.

Now I am really confused. Is the original sentence commonly used by natives? Does it really mean what the author has explained?

 

[andrewg927]

Could you provide us with more context? Who is the author? Is this an article? Novel?

 

[lagoo]

Could you provide us with more context? Who is the author? Is this an article? Novel?

It's in a textbook written by a Chinese for the learners, where the explanation is written in Chinese.


It also provides another example as:


It has been a while since we talked.


Here, the author has explained that it doesn't mean we have talked for a while, but it means we have NOT talked since last time when we did.

 

[emsr2d2]

It doesn't necessarily mean that she "quit" (resigned from her job) but it does mean that she has not worked as a teacher for the last three years.

 

[Tdol]

The original is OK. The explanation may help, but we wouldn't use it.