Time phrases

[laepelba]

I've always had a bit of a problem with time phrases. I know I can make myself understood, but have never been convinced that I have the grammar correct. There is an exercise in the book that I'm working through right now. I am sure that there are many possible correct answers, and of course they only give one or two in the answer key. I am going to try to write several different iterations of possible answers. Will you please check my work? (The book gives the time frame in parentheses for use in the answer.)

1) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que viven ustedes en este país? (cuatro años)
Vivimos aquí hace cuatro años.
Vivimos aquí desde hace cuatro años.
Hace cuatro años que vivimos aquí.
Llevamos cuatro años viviendo aquí.

2) ¿Desde cuándo trabajan ustedes juntos? (el once de febrero)
Trabajamos juntos desde hace el once de febrero.
Trabajamos juntos desde el once de febrero.
[I don't think that there are options here to begin the sentence using "hace..." or by using "llevar", right?]

3) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas nadando? (treinta minutos)
Llevo treinta minutos nadando.
[I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

4) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no ve a su familia? (tres meses)
[Note: I assumed that "su" here refers to him/her and not "usted". The book gave no direction on this.]
Hace tres meses que no ve a su familia.
No ve a su familia hace tres meses.
No ve a su familia desde hace tres meses.
Lleva tres meses sin ver a su familia.

5) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas sin fumar? (dos semanas)
Llevo dos semanas sin fumar.
[Again, I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

By the way, are there any subtle differences between the use of "hace", "desde hace" and "llevar"? How about differences in word/phrase order?

Thanks!!

[wrholt]

I marked for items where I think either the meaning is different or it's not right, but I'm not entirely certain.

Originally Posted by laepelba

I've always had a bit of a problem with time phrases. I know I can make myself understood, but have never been convinced that I have the grammar correct. There is an exercise in the book that I'm working through right now. I am sure that there are many possible correct answers, and of course they only give one or two in the answer key. I am going to try to write several different iterations of possible answers. Will you please check my work? (The book gives the time frame in parentheses for use in the answer.)

1) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que viven ustedes en este país? (cuatro años)
Vivimos aquí hace cuatro años. To me this means "We lived here four years ago [and don't live here any more].
Vivimos aquí desde hace cuatro años.
Hace cuatro años que vivimos aquí.
Llevamos cuatro años viviendo aquí.

2) ¿Desde cuándo trabajan ustedes juntos? (el once de febrero)
Trabajamos juntos desde hace el once de febrero.
Trabajamos juntos desde el once de febrero.
[I don't think that there are options here to begin the sentence using "hace..." or by using "llevar", right?]

3) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas nadando? (treinta minutos)
Llevo treinta minutos nadando.
[I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

4) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no ve a su familia? (tres meses)
[Note: I assumed that "su" here refers to him/her and not "usted". The book gave no direction on this.] (There may be some regional variation in the assumptions when there is no other context.)
Hace tres meses que no ve a su familia.
No ve a su familia hace tres meses.This feels wrong to me.
No ve a su familia desde hace tres meses.
Lleva tres meses sin ver a su familia.

5) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas sin fumar? (dos semanas)
Llevo dos semanas sin fumar.
[Again, I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

By the way, are there any subtle differences between the use of "hace", "desde hace" and "llevar"? How about differences in word/phrase order?

Thanks!!

Yes, there are some subtle differences between the use of "hace", "desde hace", "desde" and "llevar", and there are also considerations with word order. The choice of verb tense in the event can also affect the meaning of the time expression.

These expressions indicate one or the other of two distinct ideas:

1. When something was true or something happened.

2. How long something has been true.

We can express these ideas by using two different ways of defining a time:

A. Absolute times, or times that are named directly (midnight, 9am, last Tuesday, last month, March 25th, New Year's Day, the fist day of summer, [on] Wednesday). In English we cannot use "ago" with these expressions.

B. Relative times, or times that are measured as an interval of time preceding some reference time: a few seconds, ten minutes, a half hour, 3 hours, 4 days, a week, 6 weeks, a couple of months, three years, a decade, a century.) In English we generally can use "ago" with these expressions.

This gives us 4 different types of time expressions.

1.A. An absolute or named time when something happened. Simply say the name of the time with the past-tense event.

Le llamé ayer = Ayer le llamé = I called him yesterday.
Le llamé el lunes = I called him on Monday. (Compare this to "Le llamo el lunes" = I will call him on Monday.)

1.B. A relative time when something happened. Say "hace [interval]" after the past-tense event, or "hace [interval] que" before the past-tense event.

Le llamé hace dos días = Hace dos días que le llamé = I called him two days ago. (Note that with a present-tense event, the meaning with "hace [interval] que" is different: "hace dos días que le llamo" = I have been calling him for 2 days.)

2.A. An absolute time when something started. Say "desde [named date/time]".

Le llamo desde el lunes = Desde el lunes le llamo = I have been calling him/her since Monday.

2.B. A relative time when something started. Say "desde hace" after the event, or "hace [interval] que" before the present-tense event. Or use a variation of "llevar [interval]".

Le llamo desde hace dos días = Hace dos días que le llamo = I have been calling him/her for 2 days. (Note that with a preterite-tense event, the meaning of "hace [interval] que" is different: "hace dos días que le llamé" = I called him/her two days ago.)

I'm sure there are some other issues that may be relevant from time to time with all of these cases, along with questions regarding how to make all of these statements in the past instead of in the present.

[aleCcowaN]

Just three comments:

Trabajamos juntos desde hace el once de febrero.
No ve a su familia hace tres meses. () [This one is at most a colloquial way to shorten "la última vez que vio a su familia fue hace tres meses"]
Remember that "vivimos" is both present and past simple, so you choice of prepositions, adverbs, u.s.w. will affect our understanding of the time the action is taking place, so "it sounds good" may be tricky here.

[laepelba]

Thanks to both of you! Sorry I'm just getting back to this - I'm heavily into getting ready to leave on my trip....

This is wonderfully understandable!! A few questions, though.

1) So you only use "desde hace" when the event has ended?
2) I'm still not so sure what was wrong with "no ve a su familia hace tres meses"....
3) Wrholt, how does "llevar" fit into your explanations 1a,1b,2a,2b...?
4) Alec, what does "u.s.w." mean? I'm not sure what you're getting at with your comment about vivimos (I do understand that the conjugations are the same, but I am not sure where you're going about the choice of prepositions & adverbs. Can you give me some examples?

Thank you again!!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by laepelba

4) Alec, what does "u.s.w." mean?

It's German, und so weiter = and so on. I'm not so sure whether the language switch was intentional. I hope it was.

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Thanks to both of you! Sorry I'm just getting back to this - I'm heavily into getting ready to leave on my trip....

This is wonderfully understandable!! A few questions, though.

1) So you only use "desde hace" when the event has ended?
2) I'm still not so sure what was wrong with "no ve a su familia hace tres meses"....
3) Wrholt, how does "llevar" fit into your explanations 1a,1b,2a,2b...?
4) Alec, what does "u.s.w." mean? I'm not sure what you're getting at with your comment about vivimos (I do understand that the conjugations are the same, but I am not sure where you're going about the choice of prepositions & adverbs. Can you give me some examples?

Thank you again!!

1. No, you use "desde hace" with an interval to say how long it has been going on.

2. "No ve a su familia hace tres meses" has two parts: (1) an event "no ve a su familia", which is a PRESENT TENSE event, and (2) "hace tres meses", a statement of when something happened IN THE PAST. However, as the second element, "hace tres meses" can be used only with PAST TENSE events (case 1.B. in my earlier post): "No vio a su familia hace tres meses" = He/she didn't see his family 3 months ago. If you want to say that he/she hasn't seen his family in 3 months, you have to use the patterns in 2.B.: "No ve a su familia desde hace tres meses", or "Hace tres meses que no ve a su familia", or "lleva tres meses sin ver a su familia".

3. "llevar [interval]" is used only to represent case 2.B., as an alternative to "X desde hace [interval]" or "hace [interval] que X", as in "llevo tres meses viviendo aquí" = "vivo aquí desde hace tres meses" = "hace tres meses que vivo aquí".

[laepelba]

Okay, this is tough, but I'll keep working on it......... Thanks everyone!

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by laepelba

4) Alec, what does "u.s.w." mean? I'm not sure what you're getting at with your comment about vivimos (I do understand that the conjugations are the same, but I am not sure where you're going about the choice of prepositions & adverbs. Can you give me some examples?

My "etcetera" in German has already been explained by Perikles -it was "sin querer queriendo"-.

Vivimos (past) en esta casa hace tres años (y ya no viven más allí)
Vivimos (present) en esta casa desde hace tres años (y continuarán haciéndolo)

"Vivimos en esta casa hace tres años" and they do live there by the instant the phrase is said, it is just an anacoluthon. It probably comes from bad planning of the speech together with some incapability to deal with conjunction "que" from the point of view of semantics.

[Cuholvke]

Originally Posted by laepelba

I've always had a bit of a problem with time phrases. I know I can make myself understood, but have never been convinced that I have the grammar correct. There is an exercise in the book that I'm working through right now. I am sure that there are many possible correct answers, and of course they only give one or two in the answer key. I am going to try to write several different iterations of possible answers. Will you please check my work? (The book gives the time frame in parentheses for use in the answer.)

1) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que viven ustedes en este país? (cuatro años)
Vivimos aquí hace cuatro años.
Vivimos aquí desde hace cuatro años.
Hace cuatro años que vivimos aquí.
Llevamos cuatro años viviendo aquí.

2) ¿Desde cuándo trabajan ustedes juntos? (el once de febrero)
Trabajamos juntos desde hace el once de febrero.
Trabajamos juntos desde el once de febrero.
[I don't think that there are options here to begin the sentence using "hace..." or by using "llevar", right?]
Llevamos trabajando juntos desde el once de febrero.

3) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas nadando? (treinta minutos)
Llevo treinta minutos nadando.
[I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

4) ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no ve a su familia? (tres meses)
[Note: I assumed that "su" here refers to him/her and not "usted". The book gave no direction on this.]
Hace tres meses que no ve a su familia.
No ve a su familia hace tres meses.
No ve a su familia desde hace tres meses.
Lleva tres meses sin ver a su familia.
[If in this case "su familia" means "your family" (taking the rest of the questions as context I guess this is the case)]
Hace tres meses que no veo a mi familia.
No veo a mi familia desde hace tres meses.
Llevo tres meses sin ver a mi familia.

5) ¿Cuánto tiempo llevas sin fumar? (dos semanas)
Llevo dos semanas sin fumar.
[Again, I would think that it would be best to answer this question using "llevar" because it was asked that way, right?]

By the way, are there any subtle differences between the use of "hace", "desde hace" and "llevar"? How about differences in word/phrase order?

Thanks!!

"hace" is pretty punctual and more suited for events of the past, with the promise of an end to a situation or something that is not valid anymore. Although it can be used like "desde hace" in some cases but there are other cases (1 and 4) where it doesn't fit pretty well as it can cause confusions, like wrholt pointed.

"desde" specifies the origin point in time and space.

"desde hace" says that from a specific moment in time an event is taking place and also doesn't promise that it will end.

"desde location" says that a specific location is the origin of an event. Example: "Te hablo desde Argentina." (I'm speaking to you from Argentina.)

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by Cuholvke

"hace" is pretty punctual and more suited for events of the past, with the promise of an end to a situation or something that is not valid anymore. Although it can be used like "desde hace" in some cases but there are other cases (1 and 4) where it doesn't fit pretty well as it can cause confusions, like wrholt pointed.

"desde" specifies the origin point in time and space.

"desde hace" says that from a specific moment in time an event is taking place and also doesn't promise that it will end.

"desde location" says that a specific location is the origin of an event. Example: "Te hablo desde Argentina." (I'm speaking to you from Argentina.)

Y yo también te hablo desde Argentina.

Thank you for your help - these time phrases are confusing for me, and I'm still a bit confused ... but the fog will clear eventually!!