AEE 2376: How to Pick the Preposition: During, Since, or For?
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This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2376. How to pick the preposition during, since, or for.

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How do you know when you should use the words during, since, and for? Today we break down the grammar rules so that you can stop making mistakes when it comes to these words in English. Listen in today.

Our philosophy here is connection, not perfection. And over on our Business English podcast, we show you how to connect in the business world. It's all about relationship building, which starts with knowing when to be casual, formal, and semi-formal with your English. Learn more and listen to me, Lindsay, and Michelle over on the Business English podcast.

Open your search bar and type in Business English with All Ears English and hit that follow button. New episodes three times a week. See you there. Hello, Aubrey. How's it going today? I'm great, Lindsay. How are you? I'm feeling good. Yeah, I'm ready for a trip to New York this weekend, actually. I'm excited. You're going to New York? Oh, that's so fun. Are you visiting friends, family? No, just going to see the play Wicked. Going to see Wicked. Yeah. I'm

Amazing. Oh, that's so fun. And then you're going to wait and watch the movie after, I assume? Exactly. That's the way to do it. Yep. Looking forward to it. So we're getting on the plane this afternoon. Should be great. So fun. Have an amazing trip. Thank you. I have a question for you to start us out here. Okay. Yes. How long have you lived in Denver? Oh, I've lived here for, I think,

Five, six years. Yeah. And then I have another question, actually, that's going to use some of the grammar we're talking about today, some of the vocabulary. How long has it been since you've been to New York? Oh, it's been, I think it's actually been close to five or six years since I've been to New York. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. And you could say, you know, oh, I haven't been to New York since 2019, maybe something like that, right? We have a lot of options. Yeah. Yes. So many options. This is going to be a great episode. We see mistakes about this a lot in English, often because students are translating from their first language and prepositions work differently in languages. So we're talking about when to use for, during, and since today.

I love that. I love that. And we've heard a couple, yeah, like you said, we've heard a couple mistakes in our Open Conversation Club. We're pointing them out today. And we just love interacting with our students. We get a chance to really understand the challenges, right, that our listeners are... Absolutely. Yeah. Love it. They have great questions. They're bringing up interesting things where they're seeing the difference between their first language and English and realizing, "I think I'm making a mistake with this." And then often

We're able to use those great ideas on the podcast. It's amazing. You got it. All right. So just a reminder, everyone, go ahead and hit the follow button right here on All Ears English so you don't miss a single one of these episodes. This week and last week, we've been doing some grammar stuff, really giving you some good hints to get on the right track grammar-wise. All right. Yes. Be sure to hit follow so you don't miss any of these episodes. They can just drop right into your queue. All right.

All right. Where do we go from here, Aubrey? Well, let's point out some of the common mistakes that we hear. For example, we might hear someone say, "I've been here during three years." Right? So they're just choosing the wrong preposition. "During" wouldn't work there. Or maybe they'll say, "I've been here since three years." That also wouldn't work. It's very specific when it comes to prepositions of time, which one you have to use. Yes.

Really important. And again, as you said earlier, often it's a translation from your native language. So we need to find a way to stop translating and just instead learning these as chunks based on situations. And I know I do this in Spanish, French. We do this in the languages we're learning. It's so common because we're just sort of saying the way what we think it would be in English. Yes, exactly. And that's okay. But as we move into B2C1, we're going to start to see ourselves doing that less and moving into speaking in a more natural way.

Absolutely. So let's dive in first with for. When would we use for? All right. So for indicates the duration of time that something lasts or how long it happens or has been happening. Okay. Exactly. So it's always followed by an amount of time. So for example, she's been learning English for 10 years. Yes. Or he's had that job for six months. So after for, we're saying a specific time.

Duration of time. Duration. I love that. Or we've been friends for ages. So this is an interesting one, Aubrey. A little bonus today. Exactly. We have some time words like ages that are a little more general, especially when we're exaggerating.

right? Maybe they've been friends for 20 years, not actually like eras, the Jurassic and new, right? But we say ages and we would use four for this because it's still a duration of time. It is a duration of time. Exactly. We don't need to know exactly how long, like you said, probably 20, not necessarily eons, right? But it would say four ages, four eons. And we would not say since or during ages, right? This has to follow four.

Love it. Okay. Now let's flip over to since different. All

Yes. This refers to the starting point of an action that continues up to the present moment. So it will be followed by a specific time or day or date or year. Okay. So for example, we've been trying to figure this out since 2 a.m. They've been up all night. Oh, that sounds miserable. I don't know if it's an IT issue or children are throwing up. I've been trying to figure something out since 2 a.m. It's...

child yeah I'm sure you've been in that place before Aubrey with kids right something is keeping you up all night oh gosh yeah or maybe he hasn't called me since Tuesday this could come up with dating if you're counting the days and telling a friend wow he hasn't called me since Monday Thursday we'll follow since with a day of the week yeah and just so our listeners know guys we did an episode on dating in American culture just a few episodes back in 20 uh 2372

So go and check that one out if you're interested in dating. All right. Yes, that was really interesting, especially like the newest vocabulary that's being used around dating. Yes. Next one. I haven't gone on a hike since March 4th.

all right right so this will be a specific date right if you remember the date something happened for some reason then we'd use since since march 4th yes and what would be another one a break they've known each other since 2004. right so if you want if you don't know the specific time you might just say they've known each other for ages but if you know the time and you're being specific about the year or the day that's when you'll use since

Yeah, and we have to be careful here because sometimes since can be similar to because, right? That's the tricky thing, right? It's also used as a conjunction with a similar meaning to because. So you just have to look at how it's used in the sentence. Is after since, are we giving the reason for something? If so, it's a conjunction. That's different. It's not a preposition. Got to look at the context, right? Good. All right, we have a third one that we've added on, which is during.

Okay. Yes. This specifies when something happens within a timeframe or event. All right. So for example, she got a phone call during class. So class was going on and she got a phone call. Exactly. Right. Every now and then I'll hear my phone buzzing. I'm getting a phone call during a podcast recording. Yes. Just make sure it's not the school. Everyone else can wait. Exactly. Exactly. Or during our vacation, we visited as many museums as possible.

Okay, good. Yeah. So we often use this at the beginning of a sentence like this during and then you name the event. And in this case, there will be a comma after because it's an introductory adverb clause. We talked about these recently on one of our grammar episodes. Yeah. Always have to follow these with a comma. Awesome. Love it.

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Okay, Aubrey, let's put this into action here. I know that our listeners love our trademark role plays here. So let's go for one. Yeah, you are, we're neighbors here. I am your new neighbor. And then we just ran into each other at the park. All right, here we go. Hi there. Welcome to the neighborhood. Thank you. When did you move in?

We've been here for about a month. We didn't want to move during the school year, so we waited until summer break. Smart. Well, we're so excited to meet you. Where did you move from? Chicago. We had lived there since 2002. Oh, so it'd been a while since you moved.

Yeah, we hadn't moved for over 20 years. Oh, we got a lot going on in this role play, a little past perfect going on. Love it, love it. Yeah, interesting pointing out the grammar tenses because when it comes to these prepositions...

We can't use like present simple and then just choose for, since, or during and expect it to be correct. These are often going to be past tenses, past perfect, past perfect progressive, depending on the meaning of the sentence. All right, let's go through it and look at the tenses too. So we said, you said, we've been here for about a month.

right yeah so that have been here we have a past perfect here and then four about our present perfect perfect or about a month so we're choosing four because we're naming the duration of time after duration of time love it and then you said we didn't want to move during the school year

Right? Yeah. And here we're naming the event that it happened during, right? That's the school year. We didn't want to move in the middle of the school year during the school year. Yes. And then I asked you where you moved from. You said Chicago, great city, by the way. And you said we had lived there since 2002. And so that's two steps back from the present, right? It's not the past tense. It's before the past tense. Yes.

- Nice. - And then you said it had been a while since you moved. So again, the past perfect, because like you said, we're talking about two steps. We're imagining ourselves in Chicago,

in the past. And then we're saying before that it had been a while since you moved. So we use past perfect. And I will say that on the show, we do say, and I think it is true, you don't often see the past perfect in conversations. It just doesn't come up that much, but this is a realistic conversation. So you do need to know it obviously, right? Because it will come up sometimes. And

Exactly, right? This is the exact kind of scenario where you're asking someone, "Oh, what happened before that?" Exactly. And then you said, "Yes, we hadn't moved for over 20 years." Love it. Yeah, again, Past Perfect, "had not moved for," and then again, we're using "for" here because we're sharing the duration of time, for 20 years. Yes, a duration of time. All right, so hopefully that clarified for our listeners. Aubrey, what do we need to know next?

Yeah, we definitely want to do part two here because these verb tenses are a little tricky and it can be difficult to know if you're choosing for, since, or during, which verb tense should you choose? And we do hear a lot of mistakes where someone will choose past simple. They might say, he lives here for three years or he lives here during three years. So often we're kind of

because we're trying to use the correct preposition, we can't also think about the verb. There's a lot to think about here. So we'll definitely do a part two. Yeah, we'll come back to it and send in your questions. If these episodes spark any questions, send them in to [email protected] and hit the follow button to get that part two episode. Aubrey, any final thoughts for our listeners?

Yeah, I think it's so important to not translate from your first language. You're not alone. We find ourselves doing it too, but it is going to cause us to make these mistakes with preposition choice, with verb tenses that work differently in other languages. So instead, be, you know, observant of language as you're taking it in so that you'll know, you know, how to replicate it.

Yes, I love that. Great final thought. All right, Aubrey. Well, thanks for being on the show today and I will see you back on here very soon. All right. Awesome. See you next time. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye.

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