Using "Hacer" for time expressions.
I just finished a spanish lesson where "Hacer" is used for time expressions. It makes no sense to me at all.
why wouldn't you use "Haber" instead?
The lesson said that this sentence "Hace un año que estudio español" means "I have studied spanish for one year"
explain to me how that makes sense.
Hacer is Make/do..........so is that saying I did a year of spanish?
Why is Haber not more appropriate in this context?
they also use desde hace in these sentences. that makes even less sense to me desde is since/from. so what are they saying in this sentence ? "Estudio español desde hace un año" supposedly it means the same thing as the above sentence.
please help me understand this. the lesson didn't do a very good job of explaining why they do this.
6 Answers
Hacer is Make/do..........so is that saying I did a year of spanish?
No it does not mean that you did anything (it's "hace" not "hago"). As Eddy indicated the syntactically equivalent expression in English would be "it makes one year that I am studying Spanish". English speakers do not, in fact use this construction but in English one can also say "It's been a year since I began/started studying ..." which gets us closer to the Spanish syntax.
If it's any comfort, the equivalent expression in French exactly parallels the Spanish syntax (in case you were inclined to think that the Spanish was, simply, weird).
Why is Hacer used with weather expression?
Hace frío.
Why not Esta frío.?
Why is it Tengo hambre and not Soy hambre?
Spanish has adopted certain forms for expressing "to be" using verbs other than Ser or Estar. Why? Who knows?
Why is it por un rato, but desde hace un año? Who knows? It's difficult enough to understand how to use the phrases without wondering about their evolution.
The lesson wasn't trying to explain Why, but How to use the expressions. The Why is left to language experts and historians.
I understand your question. Sometimes it does help to understand why a particular phrase is used. It helps to remember how to use it.
However, as Qfreed and Eddy said, sometimes you just have to accept that "it is what it is".
Hi pepsi
Just put the shoe on the other foot. There must be someone from Spain, learning English, at this very moment saying exactly the same thing as you in reverse. They could have just had a lesson about the same subject and are saying,
Why do the English say "I have studied spanish for one year" instead of "it makes one year that I am studying Spanish". Why are they using the verb "to have" instead of the verb "to make". Can someone please explain this.?
If you are truly interested in learning Spanish then you will just have to except that many things are expressed in a different manner to how we express them in English. Look at qfreed's post as he has pointed out some good examples.
You could use "ser" which is "to be" because, as you said, "hacer" is "to make/do." You can't "make time" and the only way you can "do time" is in jail (and you do not want that to happen). HOWEVER it can "be time" or rather, it can be a time. But yeah, I guess you can use "hacer" to tell the time. (But I don't know why) 
Lo siento,
Selena 
Hace has diferent means, wiht verb mean do or make but un your sentence is similar a to said "one year ago"= "hace un año"
