A conjunction is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or sentences. The easiest conjunctions to remember are "and" and "or." But there are conjunctions that do more than just connect—they give meaning to a sentence by expressing the time that something is happening: conjunctions of time.

You can easily tell if a conjunction of time is being used in a sentence because the sentence will tell you when something happens or for how long something is occurring. If you can make a "when" or "for how long" question from the sentence, and that question can be answered by the other half of the sentence, then you know that the sentence is using a conjunction of time.

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

In Part I, we learned about when, before, after, while, as, by the time, until, and till. Let's continue today with the remaining conjunctions of time.

Since

There have been ravens here since the reign of Charles the Second,

Caption 9, The London Story -  Tower of London

 Play Caption

And I've been doing that since I was ten years old.

Caption 6, Ashley Tisdale - Thanksgiving Traditions

 Play Caption

Be careful not to confuse the conjunction of time "since" with the preposition "since," which means "because."

As soon as

As soon as your baby is born, you will give it to me.

Caption 41, Fairy Tales - Rapunzel 

 Play Caption

As soon as we showed up, the bears raced off into the forest.

Caption 8, Alaska Revealed - Tidal Bores, Icebergs and Avalanches

 Play Caption

Whenever

You should try to ignore cyberbullying whenever possible.

Caption 4, Bob Parsons - Cyberbullies

 Play Caption

You can listen to Radio One whenever you want.

Caption 56, Hozier - Someone New

 Play Caption

The first (second, third etc.) time

The first time was a very good experience

and the second time is also a very good experience.

Captions 5-6, The Olympics - Teresa Gabriele (Canada)

 Play Caption

That was the third time we were in the studio.

Caption 22, MTV News - Selena Gomez Decodes Her Instagram Pics

 Play Caption

Further Learning
Go to Yabla English and find other sentences (not questions) that contain the conjunctions of time "since," "as soon as," "whenever," and "the first time"—or any time you care to choose! Write these sentences down and practice making questions and answers from the sentences like we did above.