Contributed by Bruce McCutcheon
ONE POINT LESSON: Talking about time
Using For, Since and Ago.
We use for and since to answer How long...? questions. For example:
- "How long have you been studying English?"
- "For about five years." or "Since high school."
For is always followed by a 'period of time'. For example:
- For a few days
- For a couple of years
- For six months
Since is always followed by a 'start time'. For example:
- Since last week
- Since January
- Since 1996
We use ago to answer When...? questions. For example:
-
"When did you start studying English?"
-
"About ten years ago."
Note that ago is always used at the end of the sentence.
