She has lived...

She lived... would indicate the person is no longer with us.

In fact, if I had lived in New York all my life, I 'd say "I've lived in NY all my life." :-)

Are these two sentences interchangeable?

Ja

No, they are not.

I think we need to be careful to avoid the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Reinhard W. correctly stated that the two sentences are not interchangeable and Dude explained the difference.

That does not mean that "I always lived in New York" is not possible in the right context, even if you are alive and kicking.

In BE, I think there would be a reasonably strong implication that "always" refers to a completed period in the past. This implication might be slightly less strong in AE (?) but, without "all her life", "always" does not necesarily mean from birth to death, even with the simple past.

There are certainly some verb-tense questions where AE uses either simple past or present perfect with roughly the same meaning, but this is IMO not one of them. (1) means she's dead, (2) means she's still alive and living in Hamburg.


'I always lived in New York' is a different case; it could be right if you add another clause like 'when I was working for the United Nations.'

hm -- us's last answer is instructive and illustrates the superordinate rule very well.

You have to ask yourself: "Is the 'time-within-which-the-action/process/event-took-place' over or not?"

Clearly it is over if the subject is dead, but it may also be over if the subject is still alive, as in the hm -- us example. This does not have to be stated explicitly, it may be understood in the context. Even whole sentences provide insufficient context to answer this question sometimes.

Wie ist das, kann ich das past continuous verwenden, wenn ich 2 ausdrücken möchte?

"She has been living in Hamburg all her life."
Oder gibt das wieder einen Bedeutungsunterschied.

Klorix, this specific example sounds off to me. However, "She has been living in Hamburg for 16 years" sounds OK.

I'd like to second escoville's summary. "She lived in Hamburg" does mean that she no longer does, but only the specific example with "all her life" means she's now dead. Here are a few legitimate examples in which she may still be alive:

She lived in Hamburg until the age of 23.
She lived in Hamburg before she moved to Bremen.
She lived in an apartment near the Rathaus in Hamburg for over 20 years.

@Konibono: To your last sentence I would add, "and then she died all of a sudden."

Klorix

Quite honestly, with "live" it rarely makes much difference whether you use a simple present perfect or a present perfect continuous. I think you can say: She's been living in Hamburg all her life
though I agree that for some reason it sounds slightly strange in comparison with
She's lived in Hamburg all her life

Once she's dead, though, the continuous form is I think not possible:
I cannot contextualize
She was living in Hamburg all her life.

I think escoville is correct about equating "She's been living in Hamburg all her life" and "She's lived in Hamburg all her life" as raw sentences. There may be contexts, however, when one or the other would be inappropriate.

@Reinhard W.: Why not add "and then she moved to Bremen"? There's no necessary death implied by my sentence, though it might be used more often than not in instances when death had occurred. But not always. Think of this dialog:

A: Have you met the new student from Germany?
B: Yeah. Silke, right?
A: Yes. I think she's originally from Hamburg.
B: Really? I love Hamburg--such a nice Rathaus.
A: I think she lived in an apartment near the Rathaus in Hamburg for over 20 years.
B: Huh. Interesting. I'll have to chat with her about it sometime.

@Konibono: I'm convinced. That's a correct dialogue in 'normal' English.