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So I just came across the following sentence:

Прошло 2 года,а я все слушаю

If I had to make a guess I'd translate this to something like:

It's been two years and still i'm listening

It appears that, все is being used instead ещё, so my questions is: what's the difference between them?

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    Your translation is correct. You can also say "а я все еще слушаю" or "а я еще слушаю": all three phrases have same meaning. From my point of view (I am native Russian speaker) "а я все еще слушаю" is the most used one, and "а я всё слушаю" sounds like something used in books or used by poets, but people will understand you in any case.
    – user996142
    Sep 28, 2018 at 2:15

2 Answers 2

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I don't think всё alone in the sense of ещё is bookish, i use it in mundane conversations, and your sentence in Russian is perfectly mundane. But it does in my view have a certain tinge of meaning.

Ещё is a straight still, but всё ещё often and всё almost exclusively are used in combination with alternative conjunction a and have a connotation of can't stop + gerund, that is continuing to do something almost against all odds, against one's will, or obsessively. And in всё alone this connotation is stronger. It's usually said with a shade of regret, helplessness or irony.

Eg.

Она его видеть не хочет, а он всё ходит к ней

За окном уже стояла глубокая ночь, а я всё читал

In both, your Russian sentence and in this example всё is used in a clause contrasting with another clause to mean that something continues to be done or to happen despite circumstance described in another clause.

PS: It occurred to me that this всё could be a variant of всё равно which in contrastive clauses means despite that and also still. So

Прошло 2 года, а я всё слушаю

AND

Прошло 2 года, а я всё равно слушаю

although not fully synonymous are still (apropos) very close in meaning

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Прошло 2 года, а я все слушаю is basically a shortened version of Прошло 2 года, а я все ещё слушаю

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  • Yes, that's exactly what it is.
    – VCH250
    Sep 30, 2018 at 20:55

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