Learn English – what is the difference between how many years and how long years

grammarquestions

for example
1- how many years you lived in this house ?

or
2- how long years you lived in this house ?

which one is right ?

Best Answer

Both are incorrect.

The first could be salvaged by asking:

  • How many years have you lived in this house?
  • How many years did you live in this house?

The auxiliary verbs "have" and "did" are required to make it grammatical. The first utterance assumes that the person receiving the question is still living in the house (the act of "living in the house" is on-going), while the second one assumes that the person no longer lives there (the act of "living in the house" has ended.)

Similarly, the second utterance should be either:

  • How long have you lived in this house?
  • How long did you live in this house?

Again, the auxiliary verbs are needed to make this grammatical; the distinction in meaning between the two is the same as above. "How many" is a more general construction that asking about a quantity of something ("How many years?" "How many apples?" "How many people?"), and so needs to be followed by a (plural) noun; whereas "how long" is only used to ask about quantities of time, and so doesn't need to be followed by a noun.