How long you are here for you

21.08.202221.08.2022 admin 0 Comments how, how to made, как, как сделать, как создать, совими руками

How long you are here for you

How long are you here?

ladybird987

Member

Oh, please, vote in this pool.
I have found this sentence in a book «Applied Sociolinguistics» by Peter Trudgill as an example of miscommunication. I wonder if it’s that problematic.

banderas

Key Member

Once I went to London and planned to stay there 3 years.
How long are you here (for)?= for 3 years. It has some past and future elements as I have already been here for 2 years.
How long have you been here?= (I came 2 years ago) for 2 years.

I voted for «it is a strange sentence» as the other alternatives are not right.

Senior Member

How long have you been visiting the forum?
How long are you going to continue?
What’s the reason you’re staying on?

heidita

Senior Member

HI Lady, I voted for strange sentence, as it looks like a direct translation form German, which would be perfectly correct then: How long have you been here (in German: how long are you here)

Instinctively I would imagine : how long are you going to be here, if somebody said the above snetence to me.

ladybird987

Member

Ok, then, there is no other way than to explain this example. The book says it was a conversation of an Irish(A) and two British(B&C, both liguists).
A: How long are you here?
B: Till after Easter
(A looks puzzled, a pause of two seconds follows)
C: We came on Saturday

It is explained that not only for Irish people it would be correct and clear. I am not saying about standard language, correctly applied rules, but living language.

There is also another example:

A: How long are you here?
B: Just this term

This is analysed as an ellipsis, which makes the conversation clear for both speakers. An ellipsis that for one person means:
a) Just (until the end of) this term for another
b) Just (since the beginning of) this term