I want to know how to form the sentence "I looked at the water for so long
that people thought I was crazy" but I'm not sure of how I can express "for so
long" in Japanese I thought of 私はおかしかったと思われたほど水を見た, and it looks like it means
"I looked at the water to the extent that people thought I was crazy" but I
want the time part to appear in the sentence. How to say "...for so much
time/for so long that..."?
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2016-06-10T12:14:06.817
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2016-06-10T23:52:49.293
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question
grammar translation
Saying for so much time / for so long
The phrase "for so long" is translated as 長い間. And if you want to add the
sentence, you can use ほど, which means an extent. so I translated your sentence
as '人がおかしいと思うほど長い間.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-10T13:11:51.583
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2016-06-10T13:25:10.150
2016-06-10T13:25:10.150
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answer
Generally speaking, English "as much _A_ as _B_ " and "so _A_ that _B_ " can
be translated as _B_ ほど _A_.

Thus,

> I looked at the water **for so long that people thought I was crazy**.  
>  私は **人からおかしいと思われるほど長く** 水面を見つめていた。 (Note: Japanese has relative tense)

Similar expressions:

  * ～ほどの時間
  * ～ほどの間
  * ～ほど長い時間 (means really "long")
  * ～ほど長い間
  * and all ほど above can be replaced by くらい（ぐらい）

However when English writers write such a sentence, they often want to tell
"people thought I was crazy" part. So practically this kind of sentence is
likely to be given with a translation like:

> 私は長く水面を見つめすぎて、人からおかしいと思われた。
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-10T14:58:07.883
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2016-06-10T14:58:07.883
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answer
My shot at a translation:

> 頭がおかしいんじゃないかなと周りの人から疑われたくらいずっと水面を見つめていた。
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-10T23:52:49.293
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2016-06-10T23:52:49.293
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answer