3 ways to use 'as long as' - English Grammar

Hi guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "as long as". Now,

this lesson is not about "as long as" in a comparative sense, like, if I say, "My arm

is as long as three rulers, maybe?" But it is about three other ways that we can use

this very common, everyday expression. So a couple things that we have to learn about

"as long as", and we'll do them in a three-step process.

No. 1: we're going to look at this sentence, and you will tell me what is the correct way

to finish it. So the sentence is, "I will remember you as long as I live/I will live."

Which one do you think is correct in this situation? Okay, well, you already have "I

will" in the first part of the sentence, so you don't really need it in the second part.

The reason for this is that we generally use "as long as" in the present tense, okay? So:

"as long as I live". We don't really say "as long as he will live" or "I will be here"

or whatever it is. Generally, we just keep it in the present tense. Now, it is possible

to use in the past as well. We just don't really use it with "will". What does "as long

as" mean? Well, in this situation, it actually means, like, "for the duration of", "for the

duration of the period". So "for the duration of my life", "as long as I live", "for the

duration of this period", okay? The second sentence says, "You can come as

long as you're quiet." So if you have a friend who's very talkative, who's very social and

loud, and you don't want to them to come with you to, let's say, the grocery store or in

a public place. But you tell them, "as long as you're quiet, you can come." What do you

think "as long as" means in this situation? What can you replace it with? When you look

at the context, you might think of the word "if", right? So "as long as" can also be used

to mean "on the condition that", okay? So, "as long as" here means "on the condition that".

"On the condition that you are quiet, you can come." So think of it a little bit

like "if", okay? Now, finally, we have "The meeting could be

as long as three hours!" Now, after "as long as", we said that we can use it for duration,

and this is definitely duration, not condition. But what we are doing is we are emphasizing,

right? It's to emphasize a really long time. So if you want to emphasize a really long

time, you can also use "as long as". So we can use it for emphasis before a number. And

I apologize for my writing. I think you guys can understand that, okay?

So we can use "as long as" to talk about duration. We can use it to talk about conditions, and

we can also use it to emphasize a number like a really long time.

So I have three more sentences at the bottom, and I'd just like you to tell me how we're

using "as long as" in these three situations. "I will help as long as you buy pizza!" So

if you have a new building, a new apartment, you have just moved in a new house, and you're

painting. You need to paint your house. You invite some friends, and one of your friends

says, "Okay, I will help as long as you buy pizza -- right? -- for us, for helping." So

this is obviously condition, okay? So I'm going to just put -- maybe I'll write it here--

"condition", just "con." This is a condition. I will help as long as you buy pizza, on the

condition that you buy pizza. "He can talk for as long as 1 hour!" So if

you have, again, a very talkative, chatty person, a talkative friend, and you want to

emphasize -- right -- -that, "Oh, my goodness, they can talk forever." So here, this is for

emphasis. And finally, "As long as I'm here, I will

help." So again, this is for duration -- "for the period of time that I am here",

okay? So guys, here are three ways that you can use this very common, everyday, English expression.

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