Learn English – I spent last two years chasing him – meaning

meaningmeaning-in-contextphrase-meaningphrase-usage

I was just wondering. What does this sentence say? In my country we have two words for LAST – one means previous calendar year and other means previous 365 days.

Sentence: I spent last two years chasing him.

And in this sentence I am not sure if they mean last 2 calendar years or last 2*365 days. How am I supposed to know whether it is supposed to mean 2 years from now or previous 2 calendar years?

Would there be any difference if the sentence was said like: I have spent last two years chasing him.

Best Answer

This kind of question is asked frequently. English is not that precise about time. As stangdon points out, "the last two years" could mean the past 730 days, or it could mean last year and the year before. You have to determine from context.

I've been in bed sick the last three days (yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, plus possibly today).

I've spend the last day in bed (the previous 24 hours).

In general it's not important to be that exact. You can consider these rough estimates. However, because English is not precise with these expressions, we will usually add additional information if precision is important, or you should ask for more details:

If you are still sick after three days -- I mean by Monday morning -- then call me or go to the emergency room.

Doctor, you said I should take two of these pills for the next six days. Does that mean I should also take two pills today?

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