Thread: Поутру

по году не писал писем
сидеть над книгой по целым дням
Не видал его по целым неделям

These sound so very old-fashioned that I do not recommend using them.
See iCake's post above for alternatives.

Originally Posted by Medved

These sound so very old-fashioned that I do not recommend using them.
See iCake's post above for alternatives.

They translate (from Chinese explanation) something like:
1. (Someone) has not written letters (to sb?) for one year.
2. to sit reading for days.
3. (Someone) haven't seen him for weeks.

I don't know if they are right or not, maybe the dictionary has some old-style examples, but I dare not challenge the dictionary.
However, the по утру sentence is from National Geographic just yesterday, is the writer using the words correctly?

Originally Posted by wonlon

They translate (from Chinese explanation) something like:
1. (Someone) has not written letters (to sb?) for one year.
2. to sit reading for days.
3. (Someone) haven't seen him for weeks.

I don't know if they are right or not, maybe the dictionary has some old-style examples, but I dare not challenge the dictionary.
However, the по утру sentence is from National Geographic just yesterday, is the writer using the words correctly?

They are correct, but there are subtleties.

"по году не писал писем" would mean 'during some period, much longer than one year, he wrote on rare occasions, approximately 1 letter per year'.

сидеть над книгой по целым дням
To emphasize that during the period-much-longer-than-one-day the person spends most of the time on the reading, you indeed can say "сидеть над книгой/книгами по целым дням".
But most likely, you will see something different: "целыми днями", "с утра до ночи", "весь день напролёт", ...
Example of "по дню" (a quote from Internet): "гонять надо на каждом танке по дню, не меньше": you should drive each tank at least for the one whole day.

Не видал его по целым неделям
What the author wanted to say (again): They saw each other more than once, but the average duration, during which 'someone' did not see 'him', was several weeks.