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If этой refers to the current week, what does the verb being in the past tense mean or imply?

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    I was failing to understand why this raise your concerns at all. The same pattern can be found in literally hundreds of languages, including English, where phrase "This week I've been..." or "this week I was" . Then I've read an excellent Boris's answer and figured it out - this week can be about past and about future.
    – shabunc ♦
    Jun 21, 2017 at 20:24
  • я было дома - why neuter gender? Is the speaker some inanimate substance or creature?
    – Anixx
    Jun 22, 2017 at 12:46
  • @Anixx I miswrote - I sometimes get myself influenced when writing by the way I speak. !Shabunc I guess I can not explain why this roused my concern at all, I am trying to learn and understand a new language, I can not everytime bring what I know from other languages to the Russian, so even some things seeming obvious to everyone concerns me to think about.
    – Yassin Rany
    Jun 22, 2017 at 23:27

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Let's draw a timeline: 

Beginning of the current - - - - - now - - - - - End of the current 
     week/month/year            (or today)        week/month/year

Using the past tense you cover the time span from the beginning until now:

На этой неделе я была дома.

This means that you were staying at home from Monday till now (today).

Using the future tense you cover the time from now until the end:

На этой неделе я буду дома.

This means that you are going to stay at home from now till Sunday.

Using the present you are talking about the whole time from the beginning to the end:

На этой неделе я (сижу) дома - I stay at home this week.

Normally you use the past tense near the end of the time scale and the future near the beginning. "На этой неделе я буду дома" being said on Friday would be very unusual.

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At first, let me to correct your sentence. "На этой неделе я была дома, никуда не ездила." Because "Я был" if I'm male and "Я была" if I'm female.

If you say "На этой неделе я сижу дома" it means that you are sitting right now (like present continuous in English. Example: "Today I'm sitting home."). It starts on Monday (or Sunday, it doesn't matter) and ends on Sunday. If you say "На этой неделе я сидел/сидела дома" it means that you were at home last week. Like today is Saturday, you are going to the cinema, but for a whole week between Monday and Friday you sat home.

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    To me "На этой неделе я сижу дома" means that I stay at home not just right now or today, but that I have been staying at home since the beginning of the week and going to stay at home until its end.
    – AlexVB
    Jun 21, 2017 at 19:52
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    Welcome to Russian SE.
    – Vitaly
    Jun 21, 2017 at 20:14
  • @AlexVB agree. "today" is "today" and "This week" is "this week". More so, one can say "month after next I am staying at home". Here present tense is conveying planning, I guess, it goes like "right now I have a plan I will stay home". Or "I right now believe I will stay...."
    – Arioch
    Jun 22, 2017 at 8:39

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