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I am staying in USA since 20 years.

I am staying in USA from 20 years.

Which one is correct?

Community
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Mukesh Kumar Singh
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    You may want to ask this question on our sister site for English learners, where basic questions of English grammar are welcomed. This site deals more specifically with more advanced problems in the complex usage of English. You will also get a better response, both here and there, if you make sure to use proper capitalisation and punctuation in your questions. (Briefly, neither is correct. You should say, “I have been living in the US [or the USA] for 20 years”.) – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 12 '13 at 14:01

2 Answers2

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In standard English, the form of the verb would not be

I am staying

for something that has been true for 20 years.

One would write

I have stayed

or

I have been staying

One would also write “the USA”, and use “for”, not “since” or “from”. In standard English, your sentence would read:

I have (stayed/been staying) in the USA for 20 years.

You can also consider using remain or live instead of stay.

MetaEd
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  • Remain?! “I have remained in the US for 20 years” sounds rather odd to me, like he was supposed to leave, but got left behind or something. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 12 '13 at 22:07
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Agreed: different words have different meanings. For example, it would be appropriate here: "My wife returned to Bosnia in 1993. I planned to join her there, but instead I have remained in the US for 20 years". – MetaEd Aug 12 '13 at 22:11
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'Since' is used when the exact duration is not given. e.g. I've been swimming since morning. We are not concerned whether it's afternoon now, or night. That is, exact duration of my swimming is not mentioned.

'For' is used when exact duration is mentioned. e.g. I have been staying in the USA for 20 years. Here also, we are not concerned whether it's 2013 or 2003. Bur here, we are also not concerned what is the starting time period is. I could be staying here since 1983 or 1993, we are not concerned. I've just stated my stay time viz. 20 years.

aarbee
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