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Context;

İt is December 20 and I want to talk about the period of time until following

christmas.

Which one is the proper way to make that sentence or are both OK?

Sentence a)

İt is several days before Christmas.(I have seen that kind of sentence

several times)

Sentence b)

There are several days before christmas.(This sentence looks better to me)

Are these sentences same in the meaning ?

Are both idiomatic?

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They focus on different aspects of the same end result. 'It is several days before Christmas' references today's specific date, so I'm implying today's date is somewhere in November or early December. 'There are several days before Christmas' isn't focusing on today's date, but rather on the specific number of days. So maybe I'm estimating there are 30-45 days before Christmas.

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    To me, "several" is 5 or 10 days, not 30 or 40. 30 or 40 days would be "a few weeks before Christmas".
    – The Photon
    Commented Oct 15, 2018 at 20:15
  • To me "several" is no more than you can count on one hand.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 16, 2018 at 10:30
  • Several is very subjective, agreed. But that has nothing to do with the question at hand.
    – Carduus
    Commented Oct 16, 2018 at 14:40

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