This or that?
"I hate this town."
"So how have you survived living here for this/that long?"
What difference does it do to the meaning using this or that?
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" What difference does it do to the meaning using this or that? " was asked).
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anonymous"I hate this town."
"So how have you survived living here for this/that long?"
What difference does it do to the meaning using this or that?
I, as a non-native, understand "that long" in such a context as "very (extremely) long" and "this long" as a description of the duration of time which had already been specified/known (i.e.,
0"this long" is "up until now".
"that long" is "up until that time".
It seems to me that "this long" is more appropriate in the given context because nothing in the conversation mentions a point in time in the past (i.e., "that time") from which to measure the meaning of "that long".
CJ
0
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