...has moved to ... for 3 years.

[j29682896]

Hi everyone

I just came across a sentence "She has moved to the city for 3 years."

I am wondering if it is natural and correct.
Would it be better to say "She moved to the city 3 years ago." or "She has lived in the city for 3 years." Or I don't need to change anything because this is a good sentence.

Thank you.

 

[dojibear]

She has moved to the city for 3 years.

This sentence does not mean either of these things:

Would it be better to say "She moved to the city 3 years ago." or "She has lived in the city for 3 years."

The original sentence is odd. It means "She has moved to the city, with a plan of living there for 3 years and then leaving".

That could make sentence sense in this context: she is a university student, here for a 3-year course of study.

 

[j29682896]

Thank you for your reply,dojibear.

But this sentence appear in an English grammar teaching material(created by a student), explaining present perfect tense, he want to to express that by adding "for", it can also imply duration, so I was wondering if the sentence should be modified.

 

[dojibear]

"She has moved to the city." is a correct use of perfect tense. But "for three years" is incorrect.

What duration are you asking about? Moving only takes 1 or 2 days. You don't spend 3 years "moving".

 

[j29682896]

What duration are you asking about? Moving only takes 1 or 2 days. You don't spend 3 years "moving".

I was wondering the same thing too when I saw the sentence, so I thought it would be appropriate to replce "moved to" with "lived" , by doing so, the sentence would be "She has lived in the city for 3 years.", which is an example of present perfect tense and also illustrates using the preposition "for" to indicate duration.

 

[dojibear]

Yes, that works. The problem is that the time frame (either past perfect or simple past) has 2 kinds of verbs in it:

(1) verbs describing actions that last the entire time period:
He lived there for three years.
I've been a student for 3 years.
I lived in Verona for 13 years.

(2) verbs describing shorter actions that occured one or more times during the time period:
He has visited me 5 times in the last 3 years.
He moved twice in 3 years.

 

[j29682896]

Got it. Thank you for the detailed explanation, dojibear.

 

[zaffy]

The original sentence is odd. It means "She has moved to the city, with a plan of living there for 3 years and then leaving".

So the orignal sentence was not uttered by a native speaker, right?

 

[j29682896]

So the orignal sentence was not uttered by a native speaker, right?

You are right. He isn't a native speaker.