Prepositions in Real Life: SINCE, FOR, DURING, WHILE

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid, back with another fun lesson on prepositions. I know how much

you love those little words. No, I'm just kidding. But in any case, you need those little

words, right? So, this time, we're going to learn about four prepositions, but in a slightly

different way. So, normally what happens is this. My students learn a concept about prepositions,

and they do the exercises in their grammar books, and usually they get it right. But

they tell me that once they close the grammar book and they actually try to use it when

they're speaking or when they're writing, then they get a little bit confused. So, today,

this lesson is called "Prepositions from Real Life", which means we're going to see these

prepositions used in a little bit of a story. All right? Because that's more realistic.

In real life, you're not going around with your grammar book; you're just going around

with your stories, and your life, and your conversations. Okay? So, let's look at this

story about Marcelo from Brazil, and you are going to help me to decide which preposition

to use in the story. Now, you can do this in a couple of ways. So, first, I'm going

to stand out of the way. So, if you'd like, you can pause the video here and stop it,

and go through the story by yourself first, and just write down what you think the answer

is. Okay? In each case, there are two choices. "Since", "for", or "during", and "while".

Okay? And that runs through the entire story. So, if you want, pause it here and put down

what you think the answers are, and then we can do it together. And if you don't want

to pause it, then continue now with me. All right? And give me the answer as we go along.

Let's get started.

So, here we go. So, Marcelo says, "Hi. I'm Marcelo from Brazil. I've been in Toronto

blank two months." What should it be? "I've been in Toronto

for two months." Okay? Good. Next. "I came here blank the summer." What's the answer?

"I came here during the summer." Okay? Now, don't worry. Right now, we are just putting

in what you think the answers are, and I'm telling you what the answers are, but after

this, I'll be explaining exactly the difference between "during" and "while", and the difference

between "since" and "for". Okay? But this is, like, a little way to check whether you

have a little bit of an issue or doubt about this, or whether you're 100% certain. Okay?

Let's continue with Marcelo's story. "Blank then..." Sorry, let's go back just a second.

So, he said, "I came here during the summer." Then he says, "Blank then I've been learning

English." What should it be? "Since then, I've been learning English." "Blank the day

I attend classes." What's the answer? "During the day, I attend classes." "Blank I am there,

I also speak to my friends." What's the answer? "While I am there, I also speak to my friends."

I need to practice because I'll only be here blank one more month. What is it? Four.

"Luckily, I live with a Canadian family and practice English blank I am at home." What

should it be? "While I am at home." "Wish me luck, I picked up that phrase today blank

my conversation class." What's the answer? "I picked up that phrase today during my conversation

class." Okay? So, let's read the story once again. If you like, read it along with me.

Okay? So you can hear the correct answer, first of all. All right?

"Hi. I'm Marcelo from Brazil. I've been in Toronto for two months. I came here during

the summer. Since then, I've been learning English. During the day, I attend classes.

While I'm there, I also speak to my friends. I need to practice because I'll only be here

for one more month. Luckily, I live with a Canadian family and practice English while

I'm at home. Wish me luck, I picked up that phrase today during my conversation class."

Okay? All right. So, how did you do on that? Did you get them all right? If so, that's

amazing. You might still want to make sure why, okay, you got them right and what exactly

they mean. And if you were a little bit unsure or you got them wrong, that's fine. That's

why you're here, and we're going to understand exactly what the difference is between "since"

and "for" and between "during" and "while". Let's do that right now.

All right, so let's start with "for" and "since". Now, usually, we use both of these prepositions

when we are using the perfect tenses in English. What are they? The present perfect, present

perfect continuous, past perfect, past perfect continuous, and all of those lovely tenses,

which you have spent so much time learning. Now, you can use them with "for" and "since".

Now, I'm going to show you what the difference is between these two prepositions. So, we

use "for" plus the length of time. Okay? How long. So, when we're talking about... When

we say "for", we're talking about how long something lasted, how long something happened.

Okay? But we use "since" plus a point in time. All right? So, we say "from when". Okay? When

did it begin? When did it start? When did that start happening? Okay? So, here we're

saying how long something happened, and here we're saying "from when it began". That's

the difference.

Let's look at some sentences so you can understand more clearly. So, I could say, "I've been

waiting for two hours." It tells me the period of time, the length of time. Right? Or I could

say, "I've been waiting since 6 o'clock." That means what time is it now? It's 8 o'clock.

Right? If we're still... If we... If these two sentences are talking about the same event,

we could say, "I've been waiting for two hours", or "since 6 o'clock", now it's 8 o'clock.

All right? And that period, we'll use "for". All right, let's continue. "He's worked here

for five days." Or you can say, "He's worked here since Monday." All right? That means

now it's Friday. Right? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. "For five days", or "since

Monday". All right? Since the point in time. "For" plus the length of time. Keep that in

mind.

Next, "The store's been open." "The store's been open" means what? The store has been

open for three weeks. Right? For three weeks, period of time, length of time. Or, "The store's

been open since July 1st." Okay? Good. Hope you're beginning to see the patterns there.

"We've known her", "We have known her for 20 years", or "since 1999". Okay? Good.

The next one, "They've lived there", "They have lived there for six months." Okay? For

six months. Or you can say, "They've lived there since Christmas." Okay? Since Christmas,

a point in time. So again, we don't have to say, like, a time, like 6 o'clock, or a day,

or July, for a date, or a year. You can also say just an event, like since Christmas, since

I got this new job, since they got married, whatever. Okay? Because those are also events,

and they are points in time, and not periods of time.

All right. Let's look at the next one. "He's been in London", "He has been in London for

40 years." Okay? That's one. For 40 years, period of time, length of time. Or you could

say, "He's been in London since he was born." Okay? All right. So, now you can see that

even something like that, right? You reference an old event, or it could be, again, it doesn't

have to be a short amount of time, or a long amount of time. It could be hundreds of years

ago, it could be thousands of years ago, it doesn't matter. Okay?

Now, here I've given you a basic overview of these two prepositions, two important prepositions.

We use them a lot. They come out... They come up a lot in our conversation. But if you haven't

got it perfectly, and you'd like a little more clarification, I do have an older video

which focuses on "for" and "since", and I'll give you the link to that as well with this

lesson. Okay?

Now, let's move to our next two prepositions. All right, now let's look at "during" and

"while". So, we use "during" plus a noun. Okay? A noun is a person, place, thing, or

idea in English. Right? So, after "during", we have to have a noun of some kind. But with

"while", we use "while" plus a gerund. What's a gerund? Do you remember? A gerund is when

we have a verb with -ing, like running, watching, sleeping, reading. Okay? These are all gerunds.

So, we use "while" followed by a gerund, or we can use "while" plus a subject and a verb,

like a sentence. Right? A regular sentence. Let's look at some examples so you understand

perfectly.

"They were talking during the movie." Okay? So, we see here "during" plus a noun, "movie".

Or "They were talking while watching the movie." Okay? Got it? So, we have "while" plus what?

The gerund, and now it's correct. We can't say "during", we say "while watching". Okay?

But "during the movie".

Another example. "I slept during the flight." Again, "during" plus the noun. What was the

noun? "Flight". Or "I slept while I was on the flight." All right? So, here we have the

example of "while" plus the subject, "I", verb, "was on the flight". So, you can have

a whole sentence right after that. "While I was on the flight, I slept." Or "I slept

while I was on the flight." Got it? Good.

Next, "We met during the conference." So, again, what's the noun there? "Conference".

"During" plus a noun, "during the conference". Or we could say, "We met while we were at

the conference." All right? So, here we have an example of subject, "we", and verb, "were".

All right? So, this is basically it, but once again, if you'd like a little more clarification,

you can check out my older video on the same subject, and it covers the same subject but

in a slightly different way. Sometimes that slightly different explanation helps, sometimes

some more examples help, and that's perfectly fine. It's okay. At some point, you'll say,

"Yes, I've got it." Okay? And that's what we're aiming for.

Now, what you can do to practice this and really get it also is go to our website, www.engvid.com.

There you can do a quiz on this, so definitely do that because it's very helpful to review.

Okay? It's not always enough just to watch, you want to practice it right away or maybe

practice it again after a few days. That's one thing you can do. Another thing you can

do is maybe you could write a little story just like we started with, right? Using these

prepositions, "during", "while", "since", "for", write about your life or somebody else's

life. You could write a little paragraph if you're ambitious and you feel like doing that,

or you could even just answer the question, "How long have you been learning English?"

and answer the question using one of those prepositions, or both. Okay? "I've been learning

English", what? "For", or "I've been learning English since", something. All right? And

you know now which one to use. All right? Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel

so you can continue to get lots of lessons that will help you, I hope and I believe,

to learn English a lot faster and with a little bit more fun and energy. Okay? Always keep

your energy high, always stay optimistic and positive, and know that you can do it, and

the fact that you're watching this lesson in English already means that you speak English.

You just want to get better and better, and you are. Okay? Thanks very much for watching.

Bye for now.