GIVE ANSWERS - English

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Which is correct? ”I’ve been living here for 5 years” OR ”I’ve lived here for 5 years”?

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  • Reginald_Raymund profile picture Reginald_RaymundJune 2017
    Your first number is correct, but the second one needs some revision. "I've lived here for five years" could also mean you no longer live in that place or you have already left that place for a while and are just recalling a memory. This is different from the suggestion that you are still about to move to another place. I hope this helps.
john_yamam profile picture john_yamamApril 2019
The most popular answer here (by sureshbabupula) is incorrect! It is perfectly correct to say something like "I have lived here for five years and I have never seen anything like that", using the present perfect simple and with no implication that you are going to stop living here. Equally, you can say, "I've been living here for five years and it's time for a change", using the present perfect continuous and implying that you are not going to continue living here.

The real difference between the two forms is that the simple form focuses on the speaker's state or condition at the time of speaking, while the continuous form focuses on the process or time frame in the period of time before the time of speaking.

"I've lived here for five years." - The speaker is a person who has had the experience of living in a particular place for five years.

"I've been living here for five years." - The speaker has been through the process of living in a particular place for five years.

These expressions in themselves do not tell us anything about whether the person will or will not continue living there in the future. That can only be shown by adding more context.

The difference between these two expressions is very slight, and I can't think of any contexts where one of these expressions would definitely be right and the other would definitely be wrong. If you can think of such a context please tell me!
ProfTom profile picture ProfTomMarch 2013
Both are correct. The second suggests a degree of finality to the living. Maybe you're about to move. This is suggested mind, and not necessarily the case. I could say more, but since different verbs behave differently with these two tenses, it would take a while.
  • exRanger profile picture exRangerJanuary 2019
    Agreed: both examples are prefectly correct. What is NOT correct is this: when citing a number in a sentence in English, the single-digit numbers, i.e., 1-9, are customarily rendered it the fully-expressed, spelled-out format, i.e., "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, & nine". Thus in both of your sentences the term "5" should be speled out, i.e., "five".
flimflammy profile picture flimflammyJanuary 2018

Both are intelligible here in the USA. I have used both versions many times                                            FlimFlammy.

 

  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2023
    There might be issues in the US education system given that many people from the US are unable for whatever reason to differentiate between simple and continuous tense forms..
jercar123 profile picture jercar123December 2017
They both work, depends on the context.