Question to English speakers: meaning of "haven't been doing something for x"

[Cifi]

Ok, if I say "I've been doing something for a long time" the meaning is quite clear I think.

But if I negate it: "I haven't been doing something for a long time", does that mean I haven't done it lately, but used to do it a long time ago? Or is it rather understood that I only recently started to do something?

(This is loosely related to this sentence in English from Spanish: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/5376 ... -very-long, but I think my question is actually only about the English sentence in the first place, so I placed it here.)

[Deleted User 114]

But if I negate it: "I haven't been doing something for a long time", does that mean I haven't done it lately, but used to do it a long time ago?

Taking the first sentence, “I haven’t been doing something for a long time”, you would normally specify what you are doing.

For example:

“I haven’t been gardening for a long time.” A better way to say this would be- “I haven’t been gardening for very long.” Meaning that you recently started gardening.

If you’re trying to talk about something you used to do, but stopped, and are now taking it up again, you would say-

“I haven’t gardened for a long time” or “I haven’t worked in my garden in a long time”.

I hope that this was helpful, and that I wrote clearly!

[Cifi]

Thanks a lot, Jacko! So it's mainly the tenses that make the difference?

I.e. with the first meaning, you would always use present perfect continuous, while with statements like "I haven't worked in my garden for months" you wouldn't?

[Rickiefl]

Yes, that’s correct.

[Cifi]

Just adding this for those who are learning German:

I think the most natural way to say it in German would be:

I haven't been playing guitar very long = Ich spiele noch nicht sehr lange Guitarre.

I haven't played guitar in a long time = Ich habe lange nicht (mehr) Guitarre gespielt.

[Cifi]

And in a follow up [mention]Fer²[/mention] helped me figure out the Spanish translations:

viewtopic.php?t=3103-diferencia-entre-d ... al-español