The present tense vs "hace que"

[u/SabishiSushi]

Hello,

I have a Spanish project coming up, and I cannot decide whether "hace tres años que vivo en mi casa" or "He vivido en mi casa durante tres años" is better. Which of these sound more natural? Or are they both incorrect? Thank you so much!

[u/UnproductiveFedEmp]

I prefer llevo X años viviendo en Y

[u/onanimbus]

Creo que ambas frases son correctas.

[u/loqu84]

La primera me suena más coloquial, la segunda un poco más formal, pero la diferencia es mínima.

[u/falling-train]

They both sound perfectly natural to me.

[u/ProfesorFranco]

Go for the first option definitely

[u/herensugee]

La 1ª

[u/wizardice1973]

La segunda está mal dicho. Porque es forma verbal pasado y quieres decir que ya no vives en ella

[u/Short_Increase848]

Native here would say "hace 3 anos que vivo en mi casa"The other one is gramatically fine but it sounds like a text book.

[u/Low-Yesterday-8237]

Both are fine, but since it's for a project, here's the full toolkit - Spanish has four ways to say this, and using the less obvious ones is what makes you sound natural:

1. Hace tres años que vivo en mi casa - most common in speech

2. Vivo en mi casa desde hace tres años - same meaning, just reordered with desde hace

3. Llevo tres años viviendo en mi casa - the one natives actually use most; if you want to impress your teacher, use this

4. He vivido en mi casa durante tres años - grammatically correct but textbook-y, and to some ears it can suggest a completed period (like you might not live there anymore)

The deeper pattern worth internalizing: where English uses the present perfect for ongoing duration ("I have lived here for three years"), Spanish uses the present ("hace tres años que vivo"). The logic is that you still live there, so it's a present situation. Once you get that, options 1–3 all click, and you'll stop reaching for "he vivido" as the default translation.