How to Answer "How long have you been here?" Present Perfect English | Go Natural English

Hey, hey naturals, how are you?

I'm your favorite American English teacher Gabby, and I am so

Thrilled to be here with you to help you with one of the most

common

English mistakes that I hear even intermediate and even advanced English learners

Making so it is time to stop the confusion to stop this problem because it really isn't

So hard to fix you can do it just by watching this quick

lesson

So if you're ready to improve your fluency and your confidence then let's go

Now just before I jump into this quick grammar lesson in which I'm going to show you

how to correctly form and

answer

questions about

Talking about the amount of time that you are in a place

I want to tell you that if you are ready to learn

More, you can get all of my best tips in one

easy to download

Ebook called the English fluency formula

You can click right up there on the card to learn more about how to download it right now or also

There's a link in the description of this video right down and they're awesome, so I'm going to begin

With the problem now. I've gotten a lot of emails asking me about

how to ask about the amount of time I've also gotten a lot of your comments in

My youtube videos about how to ask about the amount of time

And I've seen a lot of English learners making this mistake talking about the amount of time

They have been living somewhere so the problem is

When you're asking a question

You're not using

the right words or you're using too many words, so this is actually a

correction that you can do by

Simplifying what you're saying so the mistake would be to say for example

how

many time have

you been

Here or how long time have you been here or?

Maybe you're using a completely different tenants like

How long are you here?

When you really want to ask how long have you been?

Here now this can be really confusing because when you say how long are

You here that means in the present that it's the present tense

and it means for example if I am visiting New York City and

I

Have a window of time where I am in New York City that is?

One week and let's say I arrive on Monday

And I leave on Sunday and today is

Tuesday and

Someone asks me. How long are you in New York City?

I would say I am in New York City for one week

Then they might ask me how long have you been?

here, I would say I have been here for one day because remember I said I arrived on a Monday today is Tuesday and I

Leave on Sunday. I hope that's clear

Okay, if that's clear as can be let's move on so the correct way to ask someone about

How long they have been here in my example one day in New York City is?

Exactly what I just said. I just gave away the answer how long have you been

here

How long have you been here now listen carefully?

Because when I say it slowly and clearly it's so nice and easy right how long have you been

Here ah you could understand me or anyone who speaks like that

but a lot of native English speakers are not so easy on the ears so I

Want to show you a secret this is how native which speakers will ask you how long have?

You been here

How long have you been here?

Got it good

Let's move on one of the incorrect questions was how many time have you been here?

What you really want to say is how many times have you been here? This is grammatically correct now. How many times?

Plural have you been here now? This is a different question?

Different meaning completely so again. Let's use my example of New York City I

Arrived on Monday today is Tuesday, and I leave on

Sunday and you asked me daddy. How many times have you been here to New York City

well

let's see I

went to New York City when I was about 20 years old I

Went to New York City when I was 22 years old

I went to New York City about 3 or 4 other times

So how many times have I been to New York City about?

6 times

Maybe more actually, but let's just say I've been here 6 times

Yes, we use the same verb tense. I have been here

But we're talking about specific instances that started and ended over

time but there in the past I

Visited and then I left so I've been here 6 times got it good

Let's move on so if someone asks you

How long have you been here, let's say you just moved to the United States

somewhat recently a

Lot of my English learners would answer I have been here since two years ago

But this is not correct. You're mixing up

three different correct sentences and three correct sentences together

Does not make a correct sentence it makes an incorrect sentence

so I have been here since two years ago is completely incorrect I

Think I understand. What you but that's because I'm an English teacher right other native English speakers might be a little confused so

one option that is correct is to say I

Have been here for two years or I've been here for two years

Another option that is correct is to say

I've been

Here since let's see what is two years ago. It would be

about

2016

I've been here since

2016 another option would be I

Came here two years ago

Notice that we use the past simple I came here two years ago

Why because two years ago is a point in the past that is completed and over so?

Be careful again one more time. I've been here for two years. I've been here since

2016 I came here two years ago they all mean the same thing and they can answer this question how long have you been

Here now

bonus you can use this structure to answer other questions

The most common question that you're going to get when you meet new people is how long have you been here or how long have

You been here

but you could use it for different things like how long have you been playing guitar or

How long have you been making videos on YouTube or how long have you been studying English this?

Question type is so useful, and that's why I wanted to help you with it today

So if you enjoyed this lesson let me know in the comments you can practice answering this question

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Soon bye for now