How to say: "I have been studying Chinese for 4 years."

Question

How can I most accurately say the simple sentence:

I have been studying Chinese for 4 years.

This is a very simple phrase, and I am surprised at myself for not being confident in which one of the following is accurate:

我已经学习中文四年了。

我学习中文已经四年了。

我已经学了四年的中文。

With regard to the first two, I am particularly confused about the placing of "已经," and whether it should be before or after the verb. As for the third, it is a different sentence structure, is it incorrect?

Answer 1

Basically, all of your three sentences are correct, but different in emphasis.

The sentence 1 "我已经学习中文四年了" is the best match for "I have been studying Chinese for 4 years." In this sentence, you just tell the fact and try not to emphasize anything.

The sentence 2 "我学习中文已经四年了" emphasizes "四年了". Once you said sentence 2, you would probably want to say more on the result of your learning. Like, 我学习中文已经四年了, 我现在可以用中文进行简单的日常沟通了(I can make simple communications in my daily life in Chinese)...blah, blah

The sentence 3 "我已经学了四年的中文" emphasizes "学了四年". Once you said sentence 3 我已经学了四年的中文, you would probably want to say more on the negative side (different from sentence 2, where you say more on the positive side). Something like, 我已经学了四年的中文, 但我还是说不好(but I can't speak it well) or 但我还是什么都不会(but I still know nothing)。

Answer 2

这三种表达在日常生活中都可以被中国人理解，中文是种意合的语言，而不是形合的结构性语言，我们的中文教学并不专门教授中文语法。书面表达上，我更接收第一和第二句翻译。

Answer 3

The properly grammatical way to say this is: 我学中文学了四年了. First of all this uses the proper double 了 structure to convey "continuation", secondly it uses a topic comment structure:

Topic: 我学中文 "as for my Chinese studies..."
Comment: 学了四年了 "I have been studying for four years"

This "double 了" structure is discussed in this online article which contains almost exactly this example.