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Anonymous Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

How long have you been here? vs How long are you here for?

0Hi, 05002br
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00I am currently doing an exercicse on Present Perfect and don't quite understand the answer given by the key. I am supposed to pick one answer from between two given; the answers are next to a photograph of two people, I think, at an airport. One of them is holding luggage and the other seems to have just come to at the airport. They are shaking hands, and have happy faces. Above them, there is a sign that says; 01i00arrivals.02i02br
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00Now the answers to choose:02br
01ol
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  1. 01i00How long have you been here?02i02br
    01li
  2. 01i00How long are you here for?02i02li
    3. 02br
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    00I'd pick the 1st one as the are still at the airport and the person with the luggage has been waiting there for some time. Answer number two suggests to me something more or less like; how long are you staying here, is this really what we want to know here?.05100 Could someone please shed some light on the matter?02br
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    00Thank you,02br
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    00Tom02br
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    00NB: I quoted from 01i00First Certificate; Language Practise with key02i00 by Michael Vince, p.902br
    02li02ol
010id111id35
  

Top answer

0#2 is what they want. The person with the luggage has just arrived. 02br 02br 00Your interpreation is an interesting one.

— BarbaraPA

  • 0#2 is what they want.
  • The person with the luggage has just arrived.
  • 02br 02br 00Your interpreation is an interesting one.
  • " would work.
  • 0-
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8 Answers
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0#2 is what they want. The person with the luggage has just arrived. He is starting his visit, and generally, the time you are at an airport is not signficant compared to the length of your entire stay at your destination.02br
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00Your interpreation is an interesting one. If the picture had shown the person with the luggage looking angry and pointing to his watch, then "Ho
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0With the description your have given, # 1 is the right answer. Perhaps, the 201sup00nd02sup00 answer may come up as the conversation carried on….0-
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0 Quite a puzzler. People don't normally arrive at the airport to pick someone up not knowing how long the guest will be staying If I were going to visit someone, I would assume that we had all prearranged how long my visit would last. These considerations in mind, the second choice seems absurd.02br
00Yet, in the absence of anything to show that the guest had been waiting
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0CJ, you're brilliant! I wouldn't have thought of mistranslation. And I never noticed the "exercise on present perfect." 05000 Good thing you're around.02br
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00(I get to see people who are in town for business for a tiny social visit, so the thought of not knowing how long the person was in town for didn't seem that odd. It would be if that person was going to be m
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0Brilliant? I don't know. Maybe persistent is more like it! I went around in circles on that one for quite a while until I reread the question from the beginning. 05002br
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00 Jim010id1
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0Thank you all for the answers. 05002br
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00I took into consideration that it can be mistranslated by Romance languages speakers (as well as by Slavs, btw).02br
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00Jim, what you wrote was more or less my thoughts, and I whole-heartedly concur with you, but there's one thing that's been bugging me; the key says the sentence #2 is correct. 0510
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0 01blockquote
00was quite flabbergasted12blockquote
10Wow! Well, join the club! (of the flabbergasted) I'm going to guess that it's a misprint in the answer key.02br
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00 CJ0-
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0 As we see from the posts in this thread, there are arguments for both 1 and 2. I have to admit, though, my first reaction was exactly the same as GG's -- because, like GG, I also am familiar with airport pick-ups for which "How long are you here for" would not be an unusual question. On the other hand, if my flight had arrived very late, one of the first things I might say to the perso
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