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What is the difference between,

"I have been spending the last 2 weeks trying to convince him I really care about him and yesterday you ruined everything."

vs.

"I spent the last 2 weeks trying to convince him I really care about him and yesterday you ruined everything."

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  • In my opinion, the progressive prefect is usually used to imply a repetition of doing something, so I myself as a learner, however, prefer the simple form.
    – Cardinal
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 18:26
  • The first option you give, "I have been spending", is actually the progressive perfect, as Cardinal points out. I think the present perfect, "I have spent", would actually be the best option.
    – stangdon
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 19:51
  • Possible duplicate of During the past week
    – green_ideas
    Commented Oct 16, 2017 at 22:44

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They are both grammatically right. One could argue that the present perfect puts more emphasis (just by making the phrase longer) on the amount of time. More important in a grammatical sense, however, is that present perfect implies that the task is ongoing. "Spent" puts the action completely in the past. "Have been spending" suggests that it is not finished.

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