I have been wondering, how do most English speakers count weeks and months?
Do they count them as "week=7 days" or "week=1 calendar week", "month=30 days" or "month=1 calendar month"?
For example, you started living somewhere on 5 January 2017 now it is 20 January 2017. What would be the more normal answer?
I have been living here for 2 weeks (about 14 days passed)
or
I have been living here for 3 weeks (this is the 3rd calendar week)
Another example:
What have you been doing for the last two weeks?
Should I understand it as
14 days from now back (not including today)
or
Two calendar weeks
and if it's two calendar weeks, which two weeks? This current week which is not over yet + last week, OR full last week + the week before last week?
Thank you, please try to explain this to me it is driving me nuts.
I forgot the usage as well in my own language, so thinking about it as I would use it in my native language will not help me much :/
Please, this is no joke, I am serious about this and I feel VERY SAD that I do not know the proper usage.
Best Answer
There is no hard rule here. People can and do use both methods.
In casual speech people will frequently count by whole weeks, and round up. The listener will accept the ambiguity, as a precise count of days is probably unimportant.
But if there is reason to emphasize the precise number of days that have past, you can give a number of days instead.
In some instances, people will give a number of hours covering multiple days (e.g., "in the last 36 hours/48 hours/72 hours I have been doing X.") if they want to put even more emphasis on the passing of time.