4 ms·

So both "January" and "last January" mean the same thing? (Not a native speaker, but a programmer :D)

• slavik81 10y ago
  Not necessarily. Suppose Tim and Bob are having a conversation. Tim: "It's a little known fact that Woodrow Wilson signed the Treaty of Versailles while ice skating on the royal pond." Bob: "That's clearly nonsense. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June." It would be very different to say, "the Treaty of Versailles was signed last June." That would imply it was signed in June 2016, rather than June 1919.
• et-al 10y ago
  They could mean the same thing depending on the speaker. "I saw that film last January." "I saw that film in January." As the other commenters have mentioned, "last January" may mean January 2016 for them, whereas for others it's 2017. The second example should be a definite 2017, except you always have your occasional smart alec [0]. I would disagree with jasonkester--there is ambiguity here. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart_aleck https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart_aleck
  • Someone 10y ago
    "The second example should be a definite 2017" _If_ "I saw that film in January", definitely means 2017, it requires quite deep semantics, as chancing it to "My birthday is in January" shows.