| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Alisha, the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them, maybe. Let's get to your first question this week. |
| First question this week comes from Eduardo. Hi, Eduardo. Eduardo says, "Hi, Alisha. What's the difference between 'as long as,' 'so long as,' and 'providing?' Thanks." Nice question. "As long as," "so long as," and "providing." Okay. So, we can use these three words or these three expressions in the same way in some cases. So, let's take a look at an example sentence or an example situation where we could use all of these. |
| So, for example, "You can go to the party as long as you finish your homework." Or, "You can go to the party so long as you finish your homework." Or, "You can go to the party providing you finish your homework." So, all of these sentences are correct. They all mean "You can go to the party if you do your homework." So, the expression "as long as" or "so long as," as you might also hear it used, means if this condition is true or only if this condition is true, can this other thing be possible or can this other thing be done. So, "You can go to the party as long as you finish your homework," sounds like saying if you don't finish your homework, you cannot go to the party, right? So, we use "as long as" and "so long as" to do this. |
| And, "providing" can also be used to do this. But, "providing" is something that sounds much more formal or more official. Although I used it in the example sentence earlier, that wasn't necessarily a natural example sentence. Grammatically, "You can go to the party providing you do your homework," sounds maybe in most cases way too formal for kind of an everyday exchange between a parent and a child probably. But, we would see this "providing" term used more in official agreements like in contracts, documents, some may be like business e-mail for example. When you want to give that same feeling of "as long as this is true, this other thing will be possible." We use "providing" to do that in a very quick and efficient and very sophisticated way. |
| So, I mentioned that you can use these three terms or these three expressions sometimes in the same manner or in the same situation. And, that's when you want to express this "only if" situation. So, only if this is true, can you do this other thing. That's the situation or that's the condition in which it's okay to use all three of these in the same manner. However, of course, you can use "as long as" in a completely different way. "As long as" can also be used to talk about two things that are of equal length, right? For example, "This phone is as long as that phone." That means they have the same length, right? So, "My iPhone is as long as his Android," for example. So, if you want to talk about the lengths of two objects, you can use "as long as." We cannot use "so long as," and of course, we cannot use "providing" in this way. So, keep that in mind. "As long as" does also have this other meaning, this other use that we use talk about two things that are of equal length. But, for your question, "as long as," "so long as," and "providing" have the same use, but they do have different feels. I would recommend that you use "as long as" in everyday conversation. "So long as" is less commonly used in American English. And, "providing" tends to be used more in business English and other official documentation. So, I hope this helps you. Thanks very much for the question. Okay. Let's move on to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Vijay. Hi, Vijay. Vijay says, "Hey, Alicia! Are the 'last two weeks' and the 'past two weeks' interchangeable?" Nice question. Okay. The "last two weeks" and the "past two weeks." This depends on context. This depends on the situation. So, for example, "I ate so much junk food in the last two weeks" and "I ate so much junk food in the past two weeks," are exactly the same. We're talking about the previous two weeks. So, before this conversation, before the statement, we're talking about the two weeks prior, right? So, in this situation, they are completely interchangeable. You can use them in exactly the same way. They have exactly the same feeling. However, there are some cases where you can use the last two weeks in a situation, but you cannot apply the past two weeks and create a correct sentence. |
| So, for example, let's imagine that you're part of a group that is planning a schedule for a project and you want to look at the final two weeks of something, right? So, when you say to your group, "Okay, I want to talk about the last two weeks of the project." That means that you want to look at the final two weeks in your schedule. So, maybe you're thinking ahead in your plan. So, maybe you're in month one right now, but you want to talk about month three of the project. You want to talk about the last two weeks of the project. In that case, you cannot say the "past two weeks." So, the "past two weeks," or three weeks or four weeks, however long. So, the "past two weeks," the "past" one is always going to refer to a point in time in the past. When you talk about the "last" of something, it can mean the most recent of something, the last few days, the last few weeks, and so on. |
| But, when you're talking about a schedule, especially like a schedule in the future as in my example situation, you need to rely on the context of the situation. So, if you're looking at a schedule for the next three months, and someone in your group says, "Okay, let's talk about the last two weeks here." That means let's look at the final two weeks in our project schedule. So, pay attention to the context. You cannot say, "Let's look at the past two weeks in our schedule." That would not be correct here. So, please keep this in mind. Generally, in everyday conversation, we're not really thinking so much about something that's so far in the future. We're not thinking so much about like a future schedule or something like that. But, you may find situations where you need to talk about a specific part of a schedule for the future. In that case, make sure you use the last two weeks, or three weeks, or days, or whatever measurement of time you're using. So, thanks very much for this question. I hope that this answer helped you. All right. Let's move on to your next question. |
| Next question comes from Sana. Hi, Sana. Sana says, "Hey, Alisha! I was wondering, are there other ways to say 'I love you' in English. For example, to my family or my friends?" Yeah, great question! Super nice question. So, "I love you" in English is a very open phrase. And, a lot of people like to use this phrase rather generously. And, they'll say, "I love you," or "I love this," or "I love that." They might even call another person "love." So, depending on the person, they might use "I love you" and other similar expressions very freely, or some people might be a little more reserved with how often they use this expression. But, yes, we do have other ways to express our appreciation. |
| When we think about "love," we often think about it in like a romantic sense, right? We would say this to our partner. So, we might say "I love you" to that special person in our life, right? But, how do we express our love and appreciation for family members, or friends, and so on? It's common to say "I love you" to your family members. That's also okay to use. It doesn't mean romantic love in that case, and we understand that from the context. It's also okay to express "I love you" to your friends as well. So, if you don't want to say "I love you" to someone, but you still want to express your appreciation, you can say, "I'm so glad we're friends," or "You mean a lot to me," or "I really appreciate you," or "I really appreciate that thing that you did for me," or "I'm so happy that we met." |
| There are a lot of ways to express this kind of appreciation for someone without saying "love." Interestingly, we don't really say like, "I really, really like you so much." We sometimes use "I like you a lot" when we're first getting to know a romantic partner, but that's pretty much the only time that we say "I like you." Unless we kind of want to make a little joke to somebody like in our family or to our friends' circle. We generally don't say "I like you" directly. We might say some other kind of compliment. Like, "You're really funny," or "I'm glad that you're in my life," or something like that. So, you may not hear people using "like" that much. But, from time to time, depending on the person, I suppose it is possible. |
| So, that's a quick list of just a few expressions that people like to use from time to time. "You mean so much to me." "I really appreciate you." "Thank you so much for doing that." Or, "Thank you so much for being friends with me." "Thank you so much for being a part of my life." "I'm so glad we're friends." "I'm so glad that we met," and so on. I think that you kind of get the idea. So, express that happiness and appreciation. And, you can communicate something similar to "love," even if it isn't like that special romantic love or that special kind of family-related love. So, I hope this gives you some ideas for how you can express those nice feelings in a way different to saying "I love you." All right. Thanks very much for an interesting question. Thanks for sending it along. |
| Okay. That is everything that I have for this week. Thank you as always for sending your great questions. Thanks very much for watching this week's episode of Ask Alisha, and I will see you again next time. Bye! |
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