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

http://www.engvid.com/ ‘As long as’ is a very common English phrase. Find out what it means and three different ways to use it in this essential grammar lesson. In it, you will learn how to talk about duration, conditions, and emphasis with ‘as long as’. As long as you’re here, why don’t you click on this video? It’s my 100th video to date! Take the quiz here: http://www.engvid.com/as-long-as/

TRANSCRIPT

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.

I’d like to thank you guys for listening to this and listening to me for the past 100 videos. This is actually the one hundredth video that I have done on www.engvid.com. When we started in 2009, I wasn’t sure if we would ever get this far, so the fact that I’m doing this in this year still is incredible. So once more, thanks, guys. And as always, if you’d like to test your understanding of this material, you can check out the quiz on www.engvid.com, and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thanks, guys. Take care.