Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[navi]

Are these sentences correct:

1-They have that information only since last week.

2-They had that information only since the last week.
3-They had that information only since one week before.
4-They had that information only since one week before that.
5-They had that information only for the last week.

I am not sure that the simple present and the simple past work in these sentences and what's more I don't think the time adverbials are correct. From #2 to #5, the intended meaning is 'They had had that information for a week."

[roodi]

You do need to use the present perfect for 1)

They have only had this information for one week.

In 2)-5) you should do what you yourself suggested:

They had had the information for one week / since last week / since the week before.

If you want to express the idea that a certain amount of time has elasped, you use "for" (for a week, for a year, forever)

If you specify a point in time in the past, you use "since" - since last Friday, since October 11, since last summer, ...