waiting

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1
  1. How long have you been waiting?
  2. How long are you waiting?
    Are these two sentences OK?
2

Hi!

“How long” is normally used in perfective tenses.

e.g.

(a) How long have you been working here?

(b) How long have you learnt Uzbek?

So,

(1) is correct, whereas (2) is incorrect.

3

Foreigner wrote as below:
“How long” is normally used in perfective tenses.

Are the following questions wrong?
If wrong, please correct them.
How long does it take?
How long does it take Sita to get to work?

4

Those two questions are both fine as they are.

5

Beeesneees,

  1. How long have you been waiting?
  2. How long are you waiting?
    How about these two questions?
    “How long are you waiting?” and “How long does it take?” are in present tense.
    How 1st one is wrong while the 2nd one is correct?
6 
   Hi!

You seem to have been confused. I am specially quoting thread ¹ 1.
I said (1) is correct, while (2) is incorrect.
7

If you paid an attention to what I wrote, I said that “how long” is [size=150]normally[/size] used in perfective tenses. Of course, apart from perfective tenses, “how long” can be used in simple tenses. e.g.

(1) How long [i]did[/i] you [i]stay[/i] in Uzbekistan?  (Simple Past)
(2) How long [i]will[/i] I [i]have[/i] to wait before the doctor can see me? (Simple Future)
(3) How long [i]does[/i] it [i]take[/i] you to go to the bazaar? (Simple Present)

But is NOT used in the present progressive (continuous) tense

Thus, 
 Both "How long [i]have you been teaching[/i] English?" 
 and   "How long [i]have you taught[/i] English?" are correct, although the former is much more usual. But we cannot say 
    How long [i]are you teaching[/i] English?
8

“How long are you waiting?” is wrong.
What about the followings? Are they correct or not?

  1. How long were you waiting?
  2. How long will you be waiting here?
  3. How long had you been waiting here?
    Please guide me.
9

T_H_Lawrence,
Could you please help me?
I want you to give me a full lesson to understand the whole issue.
Thanks.

10

Those are all correct.

11

Beeesneees,
I thought that you will explain to me to understand how or why “How long are you waiting?” wrong.
Now a days your answers are very brief.
Could you please explain the reason and the tense involved in this structure?
Thanks.

12

My answers are brief because my time is brief and is not helped by the ongoing connection problems.

‘Nowadays’ is one word.

Your original sentence
‘How long are you waiting?’ is wrong" is a statement, so I assumed you were already sure of this fact, particularly as Foreigner has already given the answer in message #2.
The simple present tense is simply not appropriate.

13

Hi,

Of course you can say: How long are you waiting? to suggest : How long are you going to wait? That is the trouble when you simply give an example of an isolated statement/question without reference to the context in which it is said/written. Language isn’t just bits of prose/speech, it’s part of a whole.

14

Completely agree with Alan’s remark concerning language as a whole.
Still struggling to come up with a situation where ‘How long are you waiting? to suggest : How long are you going to wait?’ would sound a valid option…

15

OK, that’s one situation where it can be used… to mean
“How long will you wait before you give up waiting?”

Other than that, it doesn’t work.

“How long are you waiting?” as a simple question to find out how long someone has been standing there does not work… because the person does not know how long a wait theu#y have until it has been completed.

16

Thank you, Bev.

–It’s three months we are not on speaking terms and she doesn’t seem to break the ice first.
–Well, how long are you waiting?
Would that sound plausible?

17

–It’s three months thst we have not been on speaking terms and she doesn’t seem to want to break the ice first.
–Well, how long are you planning on waiting? /how long are you going to wait?