Help Translating Sentence into Chinese

[hiten]

How to say this sentence in Chinese:

I'm so grateful for the time I spent here.

Is it correct if I say it like this:

a) 我很感激（我）在这里花的时间。

or

b) 我很感激（我）在这里度过的时间。

Which one is correct? Should I put another 我 before 在？

Thanks in advance.

[Andy_Cheung]

I think b is better.

[淨土極樂]

时间 is not a person, you can't thank it.

Word-by-word translation is rarely a good idea. Try think to think of another way of expressing the same emotions. E.g.

我十分感谢你(or 你们 or 大家)的招待

[hiten]

Actually, I'm not expressing my thanks to someone.

"I'm so grateful for the time I spent here"

In this sentence, I'm grateful that I spent my time here. "The time I spent here" is what I'm grateful (thankful) for.

I'm not thanking someone. It's more like an internal gratitude feeling or emotion.

Another example sentence:

"After the earthquake I'm grateful that I'm alive."

Again, here I'm not thanking someone.

It seems like I have mistaken the meaning of the word 感谢 & 感激. Based on your explanation, those two words (感谢 & 感激) must be directed to someone (a person).

If that's the case, I guess I have to choose different word to express my meaning.

Thanks for your reply.

[tooironic]

Actually I think there is a problem in the original English sentence. Being grateful means you are showing or feeling appreciation for kindness shown to you. And kindness is something that only people can give you. So logically you can't really thank time, but rather the people who helped you during that time. Right?

[hiten]

Hmm, yeah. Maybe the original sentence is not correct. I'm not quite sure, because English is not my first language.

Btw, here's an interesting discussion that I found on the internet:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=269785