Mexican Spanish to Kurmanji: a week without seeing someone is an elapsed interval
A negative interval differs from a missed occasion
Hace una semana que no lo veo describes a week-long gap without seeing someone. No lo vi hace una semana instead denies seeing that person on a particular past occasion. The words semana and no appear in both, but the temporal relationship is different. A Kurmanji translation needs to preserve that distinction rather than merely reproduce a past-time expression.
The first statement normally measures an interval extending to the present. It can answer how long the separation has lasted. The second might correct somebody’s account of a meeting last week, without explaining whether the two people met yesterday. Treating both as the same dated absence would change the information available to the reader.
Kurmanji distinguishes affirmative duration from negative duration
W. M. Thackston’s Kurmanji reference grammar describes a duration construction using a length of time followed by e or in, optionally ku. For a present reference point, his affirmative examples use a present verb, while negative examples use a present perfect verb. The polarity of the situation therefore affects the construction rather than simply adding a negative word.
His Du saet e ku ez li vir im describes being here for two hours. Hefteyek e ku min ew nedîtime describes a week without seeing the other person. These examples illustrate different ways of locating a continuing situation and a continuing absence of an event. They should not be read as a universal rule that every Spanish present requires the Kurmanji present.
Compare Llevo dos horas aquí with Estuve aquí dos horas. The first places the speaker here now and measures the stay so far. The second presents a bounded past stay. Kurmanji wording selected for the first should not be reused mechanically for the second merely because both mention two hours.
Move the reference point when the story moves
Llevaba dos horas aquí cuando llamó measures an interval relative to a past call. The speaker is not necessarily still here now. Thackston also describes past-reference duration, with bû and a past affirmative or past perfect negative verb. The surrounding narrative determines whether the interval ends at the present or at an earlier event.
The same issue matters in Hace una semana que no me llama. This measures an absence of calls, not necessarily an absence of face-to-face contact. Replacing llamar with the grammar book’s seeing example would preserve the interval while changing what has failed to happen. The event itself remains essential.
In an explanation of a delayed delivery, Hace tres días que no llega ningún aviso concerns the continuing lack of notification. It does not say a notice arrived three days ago. Keeping the negative event inside the measured interval allows the Kurmanji reader to understand what is still missing and how long that absence has lasted, without inventing an earlier arrival.
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