Russian: Difference between "давно" and "долго"?

Question

Sorry for all the Russian questions!

Two adverbs:

давно: for a long time

долго: long

I was speaking with a Russian friend and I said "ты давно стояла в очереди?", (Were you standing in the queue for a long time?) but she corrected me and said I should say "долго", not "давно".

Apparently давно doesn't fit in this sentence, but she couldn't explain why.

Anyone know why?

Thanks for your help! (again :)))

Answer 1

давно is more of "long time ago"

долго - "for a long time"

Answer 2

Dolgo means that the action, or something was happening during (long?) some time.

Davno is more of a pricese thing that happened one, in the past, like davno eto sluchilas' - this happened a long time ago.

Answer 3

Actually, if you have used the present instead of the past tense of the verb "to stand", your sentence would have been correct. If you said: Ты давно стоишь в очереди? you would actually have been saying: have you been standing in the queue since long time ago? (or more precisely, you'd be actually asking have you been standing in the queue for while?)

Долго means 'for a long time', and is used to describe actions in past, present and future. It describes a prolong duration of an action. Example:

Ты долго одевалась? - You were dressing for long? (Did it take you a long time to dress?)

Ты долго одеваешься! - You are dressing for long!

(It's taking you a long time to dress!)

Ты долго будешь одеваться? - Will you be dressing for long? (How much longer will you take to dress?)

Давно means "long time ago", and is usually refered to past actions. I.e. Это случилось давно - This happened long time ago. Since Russian does not have past perfect, as in the example with the queue sentence above, this word CAN and often is used with the verb in presence tense to indicate that something has been occuring since "long time ago" or "for a while". Example: Я давно живу в Америке - I have been living in America for a long time.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

долго-you are right mean " for a long time"-russians use this word when they want to explain or say that they spent a lot of time on something...usually we use word "давно" when we want to say that something happenned long time ago...

i hope i helped you a little :)

good luck