It took me vs I took

Question

Is there any difference between, "I took half an hour to find a parking place." "It took me half an hour to find a parking place."? The only subtle difference that I can notice is that on the second option, it seems that it took me more effort to perform the action; whereas on the first sentence, I’m just mentioning the fact.

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

The first sounds like you reserved a half hour of time and used that time to find a parking space. It is not a common sentence.

The second is a complaint about the length of time it required for you to find a place to park.

Guava keyboard · Answer

Thank you very much for you answer AlpheccaStars.<img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/5.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/5.gif' alt='Emotion: wink'/>

Guava keyboard · Answer

Thank you very much for your answer, AlpheccaStars. However in my bilingual dictionary they translate the following sentence “I took half an hour to find the place” but I suppose that with this new meaning the sentence is more common because in this case, according to your explanation, I reserved half an hour to do that.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

guava keyboard“I took half an hour to find the place”

It is, to me, an unnatural sentence.

These are more natural.
I took a half an hour off to study English.
I took off a half an hour early so I could pick up my dry cleaning.

Anonymous · Answer

guava keyboardon the second option,

in the second option,

guava keyboardon the first sentence,

in the first sentence,

Anonymous · Answer

AlpheccaStarsa half an hour

In British English, the "a" would not be included.

It took me vs I took

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