Hi all.
I wonder if someone can help me out with using the present perfect to express an
action that began in the past and continues up to the present.
If I wanted to say, “I have been studying Portuguese for six months”, would it be:
“Eu tenho estudado português seis meses”?
My other dilemma is whether there should be some other element to translate the “for”:
para, há, já, or something else maybe?
My natural inclination would be not to use the Portuguese present perfect (Pretérito Perfeito Composto) at all, actually. I would just say “Eu estudo português há seis meses” (simple present) or “Eu estou a estudar português há seis meses” (present continuous). It’s another one of those cases where we use the present tense very flexibly.
If I were to use the present perfect here, I’d probably phrase it as: “Eu tenho estudado português nos últimos seis meses” (I’ve been studying Portuguese for the last six months). To me, using há with the present perfect sounds very strange.
Yes, @dpsmitt, that’s absolutely correct too (and more casual than the other options, by the way). It’s a perfect demonstration of the present continuous/present perfect continuous in Portuguese using the verb andar, as discussed in the last section of this Learning Note: Present Continuous in Portuguese.