Quote Originally Posted by BETEP
Quote Originally Posted by JJ
I would say "Я живу..." in both sentences. Проживать and жить are 2 different verbs, the first one at least is too official.
English and Russian are different languages with different structures. I just tried to show nearest analogies for those expressions.

- Я живу в Риге.
- Но я вижу тебя в Хельсинки уже месяц.
- У меня отпуск и я живу у родственников в Хельсинки, но проживаю я в Риге.
May be 'проживать' sounds little formal but it’s the best I could bethink. I think 'проживать' is only a form of 'жить'.
Still 'проживать' sounds weird in spoken language, I would say: У меня отпуск и я живу у родственников в Хельсинки, но вообще-то я живу в Риге.

[quote:1cpiectp]I would use "Я жил.." here too. "Я пожил..." sounds little odd to me. If you said about completed repeated action in the past such as Я пожил в Риге, потом в Таллине, потом в деревне Гадюкино it would be quite well.
'Я жил' is not right translation of 'I have been living in Riga'. What do thing about 'Я пожил в Риге' = 'I was living in Riga'? The prefix 'по-' makes me feel verbs as continue action.[/quote:1cpiectp]
жить is a rather "universal" verb, it can show continuous action too. The correct translation for "have been living" is жить in present.
I have been living here since February. - Я живу здесь с февраля.
We have been living here for a long time – Мы живём здесь уже давно.