# I have been in Germany for 7 months



## englishmans

Hello,  sorry  i have a  question.  How  would  you  translate  in german ''I have been in Germany for  7 months''?
<...>
I am not able to translate the  past  correctly

*Moderator note: Please ask only one question per thread.*


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## bearded

Hello
It depends on whether you mean that 1.you are now still in Germany, or 2.you are not there any more.
My suggestions:
1. (Italian ''sono in Germania da 7 mesi'') : ich bin schon 7 Monate in Deutschland.
2. (Italian ''sono stato in Germania per 7 mesi''): ich war 7 Monate lang in Deutschland.
<...>

Different versions are possible, and I am sure that native speakers will suggest you valid alternatives.

*Moderator note: Response to deleted second question deleted.*


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## englishmans

Thank you. It  was  the second

 ich war 7 Monate lang in Deutschland

thanks


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## bearded

englishmans said:


> It was the second


OK (but then the correct English expression would have been ''I was in Germany during 7 months'', I think.
The meaning of ''for'' in English is a bit different from that of our 'per', and often means 'since/_da...'.
Ciao._


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## englishmans

And  if  i would  to add  ''already''  to the sentence?

In order to  say:  ''i think you  should  choose me as  candidate, because i have  already been in Germany''.  How could i say that?


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## bearded

My suggestion:
Ich denke, dass Sie mich als Kandidaten/Bewerber wählen sollten, denn ich bin schon (eine Zeitlang) in Deutschland gewesen.

Or did you mean ''how should I say in English?  I fear it would be ''off-topic'' again in the German forum.


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## berndf

englishmans said:


> And  if  i would  to add  ''already''  to the sentence?
> 
> In order to  say:  ''i think you  should  choose me as  candidate, because i have  already been in Germany''.  How could i say that?


No, using present perfect to describe a status that has ended in the past is a grammar fault in English. English works differently than both German and Italian in this respect. At the limit you can use it, if you have left Germany _just now_ ("recent past") but not if _living in Germany_ is a distant episode in your vita.


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## ayuda?

''I have been in Germany for 7 months''? =

Ich bin *(schon) seit *sieben Monaten in Deutschland.

German Verb Review 1 [See the Past> schon seit] 
[action in the past continuing into the present]


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## djweaverbeaver

@bearded man.  _*I was in German during 7 months*_ is ungrammatical.  To convey a specific, definite period of time, we use *for *in English.  *During *is used to talk about a time span within a certain period of time.

*I was in German for seven months* =  I was in German from, say, the beginning January through the end of July, and I'm no longer there.
*During my seven months in Germany, I learned German and visited various cities and towns along the Rhine.* =  These activities (learning German, sight-seeing) were done within the time frame of my seven-month stay in Germany.

But the question was not about the past tense, but rather the present (with a perfect aspect):  *I have been in German for 7 months* (= I came to Germany seven months ago, and I'm still here at present).  Once again, *for *is for a period time, a duration, as opposed to _*since*_, which is for a precise moment.  *For *accompanies the question_* how long?*_, whereas *since *accompanies the question _*when?*_.

@ayuda?'s translation is the correct one:  *Ich bin (schon) seit sieben Monaten in Deutschland.*


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## Dan2

The English perfect might be said to mean "This is the present situation due to past events".  "I ate dinner": simple reporting of a past event.  "I have eaten dinner": "My present state is 'dinner-eaten' because at some time in the past I ate dinner."

But that allows some ambiguity.  If you ask me why I don't recommend a particular restaurant I can say, "Well I've eaten dinner there and the food was awful."  That doesn't mean "I've eaten dinner" in the more usual sense.  In fact I can utter the above sentence even if I haven't eaten anything in three days and ate at the restaurant years ago.  I use the perfect because I want to describe something about my present state: "I'm a having-eaten-in-that-restaurant person and therefore am qualified to pass judgement on it".  You might call this the "in my resumé" use of the perfect.

Now consider this exchange (not autobiographical!):
- You speak perfect German.  You must have lived in Germany for at least a year at some point.
- Yes, in fact I _have _lived in Germany for a year; it was in 2006-2007.

So in this "resumé" use of the perfect you can indeed say - *even if you've been back in Italy for a year now* -


englishmans said:


> ''i think you should choose me as candidate, because i have already been in Germany''


where the implication is "as opposed to the your other applicants, who likely have _never _been to Germany".  (If applying in English, you will improve your chances of being selected if you capitalize your "I"s...)


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## bearded

djweaverbeaver said:


> _*I was in German during 7 months *_is ungrammatical. To convey a specific, definite period of time, we use *for *in English. *During *is used to talk about a time span within a certain period of time.


If my understanding is correct, in order to differentiate between ''I'm still there'' and ''I'm no longer there'', it is sufficient to change the verb tense, i.e. ''I have been in Germany for 7 months''  vs.  ''I was in Germany for 7 months''.
What about ''I have been in Germany 7 months long'' / ''I was in Germany 7 months long''? Same difference?

< ... >


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## djweaverbeaver

bearded man said:


> What about ''I have been in Germany 7 months long'' / ''I was in Germany 7 months long''? Same difference?
> < ... >



No, @bearded man,  this is not correct.  *To be X long* is used to express the measurement of length (distance, time, extent, a book).  The subject of the sentence is the thing being measured.  Since you as a person can't be measured as extent of time (except to tell your age), your sentences don't make sense.  On the other hand, you could change it to say *My stay in Germany was seven months long*.  The present perfect would not work in this case.


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## bearded

Well, I was thinking of the adverbial temporal use of 'lang(e)'' in German :  wie lange? Sieben Monate lang/mein Leben lang.  I thought the same might be possible in English, like in the song ''All night long''.


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> Well, I was thinking of the adverbial temporal use of 'lang(e)'' in German :  wie lange? Sieben Monate lang/mein Leben lang.  I thought the same might be possible in English, like in the song ''All night long''.


German is actually like English in this respect. _7 Jahre lang_ does only work with past tense, not with present tense. *If *you used it with present tense then it would mean that your *entire *stay was seven years (reaching into the future), not only your stay *so far*.

The only difference is that in English _present perfect_ is a present tense and in German _Perfekt_ is a past tense.


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## Dan2

bearded man said:


> What about ''I have been in Germany 7 months long'' / ''I was in Germany 7 months long''?





djweaverbeaver said:


> No, @bearded man, this is not correct.





bearded man said:


> like in the song ''All night long''.


_I've been (_or_ I was) here 7 hours long._ 
_I've been (_or_ I was) here all night long._ 

I'll let djwb explain this contrast...


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## djweaverbeaver

@Dan2, you're leaving me to do all the heavy lifting. 

@bearded man, this is getting more and more difficult for me to explain. _*Long *_can be used adverbially to show that something occurred for the whole of a particular period of time.  It works after expressions such as *all day, all night, all week, all month, the whole night, the whole summer, etc*.

I also think that if you can use the preposition _*for*_, then you can't use the adverb _*long*_:
_I've been (_or_ I was) here 7 hours *long*._   BUT  _I've been (_or_ I was) here *(for)* 7 hours._ 
_I've been (_or_ I was) here all night *long*._  BUT  _I've been (_or_ I was) here *for *all night._ 

Note that my explanation in post #12 was of _*long *_as an adjective.


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## bearded

berndf said:


> German is actually like English in this respect. _7 Jahre lang_ does only work with past tense


According to djweaver, _I was there 7 years long _would also be wrong, contrary to German _Ich war 7 Jahre lang dort. _It seems to me that German is not completely ''like English'' in this respect.
With the verb 'to be' , dj only seems to perceive ''I was long...'' (long as a predicative adjective) which of course cannot refer to time, whereas the intended meaning of the sentence was ''I stayed/remained there for 7 years''.  Now, apparently even _I stayed there 7 years long _is wrong in English ('' if you can use the preposition ''for'', you cannot use the adverb ''long''). Or would it be admitted with a verb other than 'to be'?


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## djweaverbeaver

@bearded man, you're right.  *Long *and *lang *are not quite the same beasts in that regard.  And to answer your question, I can't think of any verbs that would allow such a use of long:
*I stayed/worked/studied/lived/partied/run/swam/etc. there seven years long. 
I stayed/worked/studied/lived/partied/run/swam/etc. there for seven years. *


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## berndf

bearded man said:


> According to djweaver, _I was there 7 years long _would also be wrong, contrary to German _Ich war 7 Jahre lang dort._


Yes, sure. But this is another differences (adverbial and adjectival in German, only adjectival in English). The point I was making was about _long_ not working with present tense semantics.


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## djweaverbeaver

berndf said:


> Yes, sure. But this is another differences (adverbial and adjectival in German, only adjectival in English). The point I was making was about _long_ not working with present tense semantics.



Well, we do say _*Have you been here long?*_ and * Have you been waiting (for) long?* which is present tense, and *long *is also an adverb in these sentences.


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## berndf

We were talking about "<time span> long". The are of course myriad of other uses of "long".


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## elroy

berndf said:


> German is actually like English in this respect. _7 Jahre lang_ does only work with past tense, not with present tense. *If *you used it with present tense then it would mean that your *entire *stay was seven years (reaching into the future), not only your stay *so far*.
> 
> The only difference is that in English _present perfect_ is a present tense and in German _Perfekt_ is a past tense.





berndf said:


> The point I was making was about _long_ not working with present tense semantics.


 Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean, with examples?

Maybe I'm missing something, but the acceptability of _seven years long _in English doesn't seem to depend on tense.

1._ I have been here seven years long. _
2._ I was here seven years long. _
3._ I will be here seven years long. _
4._ My stay in Brazil has been seven years long (so far). _
5._ My stay in Brazil was seven years long. _
6._ My stay in Brazil will be seven years long. _
7. _I thoroughly enjoyed my seven-year-long stay in Brazil. _

_Seven years long_ seems to be acceptable if modifying a noun (4-6) but not acceptable if modifying a verb (1-3).  Tense does not seem to be relevant.  (4-6 are not entirely natural constructions in English, but they are examples of how _seven years long_ can be used in a grammatically correct way.)


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## berndf

elroy said:


> 4._ My stay in Brazil has been seven years long (so far). _


It seems djweaverbeaver disagrees with you:


djweaverbeaver said:


> On the other hand, you could change it to say *My stay in Germany was seven months long*. The present perfect would not work in this case.


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## elroy

It's certainly not a common construction (we would almost always say "I have been in Brazil for seven years (so far)"), but I don't know that I would classify it as grammatically incorrect. 

Some examples from the Internet:

_This trip has been 13 days long and the kids are still loving the hotel breakfast. _(Adventures in Dennieland...: 05/01/2012 - 06/01/2012)

_The Thailand trip has only been three days long and I can already tell it is going to be the best spring break I have ever had._ (Shawnigan Lake School | EDGE Thailand 2013)

_To think that this adventure has been 10 months long is as amazing as it is hard to believe. _(Today's Histories, Tomorrow's Mysteries)​
I find these sentences grammatically acceptable.  djweaverbeaver, do you disagree?


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## berndf

You didn't ask me but let me nevertheless restate my intuition: The problem is not grammatical but semantic. Affixing _long _to a measurement in one-dimensional space or in time identifies this measurement as representing the complete length in a space dimension or in time. It does not go together well with _so far_.


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## elroy

_My dissertation is 50 pages long so far. _(I need to write three more chapters.)
_My list of signatures is 20 names long so far. _(I need 30 more.)
_His hair is 20 centimeters long so far. _(He's trying to grow it out to 30 centimeters.)

These are all normal sentences to me.

Some examples from the Internet:

_The series is only three episodes long so far._ (Assassination Classroom, the Opinion So Far - WTFGamersOnly)

_My ponytail is 28cm long so far, and when it gets to 30cm, a local barber is going to cut it and we'll send it off. _(Noah is the Hair Apparent - Calwell Swans - FOX SPORTS PULSE)

_Luckily my list is only 2 people long so far, but be as liberal with it as necessary. _(Is it okay to delete someone as your friend from facebook? | Houston | Yelp)​
A couple examples with time:

_Just think how lucky the average Lower Colorado water user is that the current drought there is only a few years long so far... _(4 Ways to Beat the California Drought and Save the Colorado River)

_I have similar problems with my boyfriend, except our relationship is 3 years long so far. _(How to handle being stood up by my boyfriend?)​


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## berndf

My intuitive and spontaneous answers to your sample sentences are as follows:
1. _My dissertation is 50 pages long so far._
2. _My list of signatures is 20 names long so far._
3. _His hair is 20 centimetres long so far._

Trying to describe what differentiates 3. from 1. and 2. for me, I have come up with the following: 1. and 2. refer to distinct objects that exist in time. There is a _version _of the dissertation/list as of today, a _version _as of next week, a _version _as of... Each of those versions have a complete length. In 3. such an interpretation doesn't work for me.


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## elroy

The dissertation and the list are not any more complete than the hair.  Each of the sentences expresses the length at the present point in time ("so far" = "as of today/now"), and in each of the sentences the targeted length is longer.  In none of the sentences is the intention to refer to a specific "version."  These sentences are updates.  The goal is to have a complete dissertation, a complete list, and hair of a certain length, and _so far_ this is how long each of these things is.

I find the sentences equally idiomatic and natural.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> The dissertation and the list are not any more complete than the hair.  Each of the sentences expresses the length at the present point in time ("so far" = "as of today/now"), and in each of the sentences the targeted length is longer.  In none of the sentences is the intention to refer to a specific "version."  These sentences are updates.  The goal is to have a complete dissertation, a complete list, and hair of a certain length, and _so far_ this is how long each of these things is.
> 
> I find the sentences equally idiomatic and natural.


I don't think, those examples quite fit the paradigm we are discussing here: _long_ applies to space and _so far_ to time. But I suppose it is my fault. I wrote


berndf said:


> You didn't ask me but let me nevertheless restate my intuition: The problem is not grammatical but semantic. Affixing _long _to a measurement in one-dimensional space or in time identifies this measurement as representing the complete length in a space dimension or in time.


and then


berndf said:


> It does not go together well with _so far_.


_So far_ is obviously only inconsistent with the first part of by statement, if _long _applies to a time measurement and I should have expressed it this way.


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## elroy

"Long" is also used with time measurements ("seven years long").  The examples I gave in #26 refer to both time and physical length, and they all use "so long."  I find all those sentences acceptable in American English - based on native intuition - and I'm not convinced your distinctions apply to American English.  Things may be different in British English, I suppose (but I doubt that's the case).  Hopefully djweaverbeaver and other native speakers will give their input as well.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Hopefully djweaverbeaver and other native speakers will give their input as well.


Yes, that would be good.

Since we discussed very different examples here, let me reiterate what my proposition was arguing why; just for clarity sake:
I contend that the expression _<time span> long_ is understood to express the entire length of a period a status persists or an action or event lasts and does not fit in situations where the length of the entire period is not yet known and _<time span>_ represents the length of a sub-period that is already known.


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## Dan2

berndf said:


> I contend that the expression _<time span> long_ is understood to express the entire length of a period a status persists or an action or event lasts and does not fit in situations where the length of the entire period is not yet known


What about the contrast
_I was (will be, am always) there all night long. 
I was (will be, am always) there 8 hours long. _
(I think elroy, djwb, and I are all in agreement about these facts.)


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> What about the contrast
> _I was (will be, am always) there all night long.
> I was (will be, am always) there 8 hours long. _
> (I think elroy, djwb, and I are all in agreement about these facts.)


There was never any disagreement about that. At least not as far as I am concerned.


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## Dan2

I cited those sentence types as a response to your "I contend that..." statement that I quoted.  I thought your statement was intended as a summary of all the facts we've seen so far, but it doesn't seem to cover the ungrammaticality of the "8 hours long" sentences (since "8 hours" does indeed "express the entire length of a period a status persists or an action or event lasts").


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> since "8 hours" does indeed "express the entire length of a period


I described this as a necessary condition for saying _eight hours long_, not as a sufficient one. There may be myriads of other reasons why _eight hours long_ should be wrong in certain contexts. In this case, the reason is that _eight hours long_ cannot function as an adverbial, only as an adjective phrase while _all night long _is a valid adverbial.


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## elroy

I gave numerous counterexamples where _long _is used with periods of time that do not necessarily refer to completed events.  I'll copy them here:

_My stay in Brazil has been seven years long (so far)._
_This trip has been 13 days long and the kids are still loving the hotel breakfast._
_The Thailand trip has only been three days long and I can already tell it is going to be the best spring break I have ever had. _
_To think that this adventure has been 10 months long is as amazing as it is hard to believe. _
_The series is only three episodes long so far.*_
_Just think how lucky the average Lower Colorado water user is that the current drought there is only a few years long so far... _
_I have similar problems with my boyfriend, except our relationship is 3 years long so far. _
I also gave some examples not referring to time:

_My dissertation is 50 pages long so far. _(I need to write three more chapters.)
_My list of signatures is 20 names long so far. _(I need 30 more.)
_His hair is 20 centimeters long so far. _(He's trying to grow it out to 30 centimeters.)
_My ponytail is 28cm long so far, and when it gets to 30cm, a local barber is going to cut it and we'll send it off. _
_Luckily my list is only 2 people long so far, but be as liberal with it as necessary. _
As I stated, I find all of these sentences acceptable.  The question now is, what do other native speakers of English think?

_*_While there is no explicit reference to time here, we can assume that this is implicitly referring to time.  "The series is only three episodes long so far." = "The series has only been around for the span of time during which the three episodes were released."  But we could also group this one with the non-time sentences.  Where this particular sentence is grouped doesn't really have any bearing on what we're discussing.


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## Dan2

I'm not certain I properly understand what theoretical claims are being made at this point, so I'll provide here only some native-speaker raw data.  I find all of elroy's sentences in the above post grammatical and idiomatic.


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## berndf

Ihr habt mich überzeugt. Wenn ich noch mal drüber nachdenke, stimmt die Behauptung im Deutschen ebensowenig._ Ich lebe (schon) acht Jahre lang in Berlin_ ist ebenso idiomatisch.


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## djweaverbeaver

Hi again,

I've been away for a week, but returning to the newer posts, I agree with all of @elroy's and @Dan2's examples.  They are all both grammatical and idiomatic.  As I mentioned above,  *long *is not only indicative of a measurement of time, but also of various other lengths.


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## Dan2

Earlier in this thread I referred to the "in my resumé" use of the English perfect and warned against the common assumption that "I've lived in Germany for a year" implies "starting a year ago, up to the present day".  It can also, less commonly, mean that my present-day "resumé" includes a one-year stay in Germany.

I totally unselfconsciously produced such a present-perfect sentence today, realizing it only after the words were out of my mouth.  In a discussion of whether candidates for US President are aware of the difficulty of the job, I heard myself say, "Well Hillary Clinton certainly knows; she's _lived _in the White House for eight years."  But those eight years ended in 2001.

(This post of course concerns English grammar only.  But since we often compare English and German tenses here, and often discuss German tenses in English, I thought it might not be totally off-topic.  I'll let the moderators decide.)


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## elroy

For some reason that doesn't work with "I have *been*" though...

"I have been in Germany for seven years" means that I came to (or was born in) Germany seven years ago and I am still in Germany now.

For the other usage a different verb would need to be used ("I've *spent* seven years in Germany," for example).


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## Dan2

elroy said:


> For some reason that doesn't work with "I have *been*" though...
> 
> "I have been in Germany for seven years" means that I came to (or was born in) Germany seven years ago and I am still in Germany now.


I'd say it can definitely work with "been", with proper context and stress:
- After seven years in Germany you'll have totally assimilated and won't even remember what American football is.
- Oh I've _been _in Germany for seven years, on two different occasions in fact, and each time, as soon as I got back, it was as though I had never left.

(The only strangeness I see in this sentence is that an exact period of seven years is unlikely.  Just replace "seven years" with "a year.)


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## elroy

I would actually stress _have_, but either way, you have to alter the stress for it to work, whereas with other verbs it can work with neutral stress.

With neutral stress:

"I've spent about two years in Germany." - This can work even if you are not living in Germany now.  (I actually say this myself when asked how much time I've spent in Germany.)

"I've been in Germany for about two years." - This has to mean that the speaker is living in Germany now.


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## berndf

Dan2 said:


> This post of course concerns English grammar only. But since we often compare English and German tenses here, and often discuss German tenses in English, I thought it might not be totally off-topic.


Not totally but mostly. Would be good if this side discussion could come to an end.


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