第一百五十七天

[nnozomi]

语法
verb (without object) + 了 + amount of time + 了 again, to indicate an action that has been going on for X duration and is still ongoing
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Expressing_ongoing_duration_with_double_%22le%22
(top half of the page only)

词汇
几, several/how many (pinyin in tags)
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-1-word-list/

Guardian:
咱们几个斗了也有大半年了吧, we've been fighting various fights for over six months now.
和儿子拥抱的感觉如何，你好像等了二十年了, how did it feel to hug your son, you seem to have been waiting twenty years
说什么呢，就几个苹果, what are you saying, it's just a few apples.

Me:
我只看了一个小时了，已经看到了牵牛花长大了。
我喜欢几种音乐。

Comments

[grayswandir]

Hmm. My first thought was that they seem really different to me, if not almost opposite, in that change of state means something has changed (it wasn't raining, but now it is), whereas an ongoing action is one that hasn't changed (it's been raining, and it's still raining).

But maybe I can try to think of the second 了 as change of state in the sense of "It's now (become) having-been-raining-for-two-hours (and is still in that state)." It feels a little complicated to me, but it might work.

At any rate, the fact that 了 can mean you finished verbing, or you started verbing, or you were already verbing and haven't stopped... oy. XD

[trobadora]

"It's now (become) having-been-raining-for-two-hours (and is still in that state)."

Yes, that's how I read it! Sorry, I explained that badly.

At any rate, the fact that 了 can mean you finished verbing, or you started verbing, or you were already verbing and haven't stopped... oy. XD

Too, too true!

[nnozomi]

At any rate, the fact that 了 can mean you finished verbing, or you started verbing, or you were already verbing and haven't stopped... oy.
oy indeed, or rather 哎哟 as the case may be...I wonder if this is one of those things (like a/the in English?) where the rules can only take you so far and after a while you just have to develop a feel for it?