I have lived in this country for a long time and I know it well

[ARB87]

I want to write this sentence in MSA:
I have lived in this country for a long time and I know it well.

My question is if I use the word بلد for country, do I still use the feminine pronouns, etc? (I believe countries are feminine). So I understand when using the name of a country or a feminine word such as دولة , but what about if I use بلد ?

My attempt:
سكنتُ في هذا / هذه البلد وقت طويل و أعرفها جيدا

شكرا

 

[elroy]

أنا مقيم في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة وأعرفه جيدًا

 

[Ala']

بلد can be treated as both feminine and masculine, although some would argue that it's better to be treated as a masculine since the Quran, a highly authoritative source of the language, did so.

 

[ARB87]

Interesting!

شكرا على الردود

 

[Josh_]

My attempt:
سكنتُ في هذا / هذه البلد وقت طويل و أعرفها جيدا

شكرا

Hi ARB87,
Just wanted to point out that your sentence means "I lived in this country for a long time...," not "I have lived in this country..."
To express that -- the concept of "such-and-such person(s) has (have) done something for some period of time" -- you can use the active participle, as Elroy has done, or the present tense form of the verb, with the preposition منذ (which means since):

أنا مقيم/أقيم في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ
أنا ساكن/أسكن في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ
أنا قاطن/أقطن في هذا البلد منذ مدة طويلة...ـ

One more quick note: وقت طويل has an adverbial function in your translation attempt. It is a ظرف زمان (circumstance of time) and as such is in حالة النصب (the accusative case). So the sentence would more correctly be:

سكنت في هذا البلد وقتًا طويلًا.ـ

 

[cherine]

Another verb for "to live in a country" is عاش, conjugated here as عِشْتُ.

 

[ARB87]

شكرا جزيلا