Learn Hardcore Russian: Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.

In the sentence Я до сих пор живу в этом доме, it emphasizes that the situation has continued surprisingly or unexpectedly long:
I still live in this house (even now / after all this time).

Is there any difference between до сих пор and всё ещё?

Both can often be translated as still, but there are nuances:

до сих пор
- Slightly more focused on the whole period up to now.
- Can sound like: “after all this time / to this day / surprisingly still.”
- Common with both positive and negative sentences:
  - Я до сих пор живу в этом доме. – I still live in this house.
  - Я до сих пор не получил письмо. – I still haven’t received the letter.
всё ещё
- More neutral still in the sense of “continuing to be the case at the moment.”
- Very common in spoken language.
- Also used with both positive and negative:
  - Я всё ещё живу в этом доме. – I still live in this house.
  - Я всё ещё не получил письмо. – I still haven’t received the letter.

In your sentence, Я до сих пор живу в этом доме and Я всё ещё живу в этом доме are both correct.
До сих пор can suggest a slight shade of “it’s a bit surprising that this is still true”, depending on context and intonation.

Can I change the word order? For example: Я живу в этом доме до сих пор?

Yes, Russian word order is flexible, and Я живу в этом доме до сих пор is grammatically correct.

Common variants:

Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.
– Neutral and very natural. До сих пор is emphasized a bit because it comes early.
Я живу в этом доме до сих пор.
– Puts more weight on до сих пор as a final comment: “I live in this house — still (to this day).”
– Can sound slightly more emphatic or contrastive.
До сих пор я живу в этом доме.
– Emphasizes the time frame: “Up to now, I live in this house.”
– Sounds more formal or stylistic; you might see it in writing or in careful speech.

All are possible; the differences are mostly about emphasis and style, not grammar.

Why is it в этом доме and not something else? What case is that?

В этом доме is in the prepositional case, which is used:

after в or на when talking about location (where something/someone is)
after some other prepositions when talking about location, topic, etc.

Here:

этот дом (nominative, masculine singular)
Prepositional case of этот → в этом
Prepositional case of дом → в доме

So:

Я живу где? – в этом доме.
(I live where? – in this house.)

Declension:

Nominative: этот дом – this house
Prepositional (where?): в этом доме – in this house

The prepositional case answers где? (where?), which fits live in = жить в (location).

Why do we use в and not на with дом?

In Russian, в and на both can mean in/on/at, but their usage is largely fixed by tradition and collocation.

With дом (house, home):

жить в доме – to live in a house (inside it)
жить на крыше дома – to live on the roof of the house

So:

в доме = inside the house (normal meaning of living there)
на доме = literally on top of the house (on the roof or surface), which is unusual unless you specifically mean that.

Therefore Я живу в этом доме is the normal way to say I live in this house.

What verb form is живу? Why not something like a perfective form?

Живу is:

verb: жить (to live)
aspect: imperfective
tense: present
person/number: 1st person singular (I)

So я живу = I live / I am living.

Russian present tense exists only for imperfective verbs.
There is no present tense for perfective verbs (they use future meaning instead).

Perfective-related verbs like прожить, дожить describe completed or bounded living, and they don’t fit here because I still live describes an ongoing, not completed, state. For example:

Я прожил в этом доме пять лет. – I lived in this house for five years. (completed period)
Я до сих пор живу в этом доме. – I still live in this house. (ongoing situation)

Could до сих пор also mean until now but not anymore, like up to this point?

Yes, до сих пор can be used in two main ways, depending on context:

Still (and continuing):
- Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.
  I still live in this house (and I continue to live here).
Until now (but something changes now):
- До сих пор я жил в этом доме, а теперь переезжаю.
  Until now I have lived in this house, and now I’m moving.

So the same phrase can mean:

up to now and still continuing, or
up to now, but now changing

The meaning is disambiguated by the rest of the sentence.
In your sentence alone, with no contrast added, it naturally means still continuing.

Can I drop я and just say До сих пор живу в этом доме?

Yes, you can drop я in Russian when the subject is clear from the verb ending and the context.

Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.
До сих пор живу в этом доме.

Both are correct. The second sounds a bit more colloquial and context-dependent, like an answer to a question:

Где ты сейчас живёшь? – Where do you live now?
До сих пор живу в этом доме. – Still live in this house.

Including я is slightly more explicit and neutral; omitting it is very normal in conversational Russian when the subject is obvious.

What’s the difference between жить and быть живым (or быть жив)? Could Я до сих пор живу mean I’m still alive?

жить = to live (reside somewhere; to exist as a living being)
быть живым / быть жив = to be alive

In real usage:

Я живу в этом доме. – I live in this house. (residence)
Я ещё жив. – I’m still alive.

Context decides the meaning of жить, but Я до сих пор живу в этом доме clearly talks about residence because of в этом доме.

To say “I’m still alive,” you would normally say:

Я ещё жив.
Я до сих пор жив.

Я до сих пор живу without any complement could theoretically mean I’m still alive, but in practice people would add жив for clarity.

How would this sentence change with negation, like I still don’t live in this house?

To say I still don’t live in this house, you can use:

Я до сих пор не живу в этом доме.
Я всё ещё не живу в этом доме.

Both are correct. Nuances:

до сих пор не
Can imply a shade of surprise/annoyance that the situation hasn’t changed yet.
“Up to this day I still don’t live there (even though maybe I expected to).”
всё ещё не
Slightly more neutral, straightforward still not.

Word order is important: the не goes directly before the verb:

✅ Я до сих пор не живу в этом доме.
❌ Я не до сих пор живу в этом доме. (incorrect, changes/ruins the meaning)

How do до сих пор and по-прежнему differ? Can I say Я по-прежнему живу в этом доме?

Yes, you can say:

Я по-прежнему живу в этом доме. – I still live in this house / I live in this house as before.

Differences:

до сих пор – up to now, still; may hint at “after all this time,” sometimes slightly surprising.
по-прежнему – as before, in the same way as before; emphasizes unchanged state rather than the long time span.

Both can often be translated as still, but:

Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.
Focus on continuity up to now.
Я по-прежнему живу в этом доме.
Focus on the fact that nothing changed: “I live in this house, just like before.”

What are the stress patterns and pronunciation of до сих пор and живу?

Approximate pronunciation (stressed syllables in caps):

до сих пор – da sikh POR
- до: [da] (unstressed, short)
- сих: [sʲix] (unstressed)
- пор: [por] (main stress)
живу – zhi-VU
- жи: [ʐɨ] (zh like in “pleasure”; stress is here: живУ́)
- ву: [vu]

Full sentence:
Я до сих пор живу в этом доме.
[ya da sʲix POR zhɨ-VU v ET-am DO-me]

Stress pattern:
я до сих ПОР жиВУ в Этом ДОме (primary stresses on ПОР, ВУ, Э, ДО).