Sasha
Professional Teacher
What conjunction (when or while) must I use in the sentence below? The question is as follows. I’ve read several grammar books and they say that you can use a time clause with “when” or “while” and the past progressive to talk about an event that was in progress when a second event happened: When Dave was eating, the doorbell rang. When we were sitting in the library, the alarm went off. While we were waiting for the train, it started to rain. I cut my finger when I was peeling the potatoes. So, “when” and “while” are interchangeable before the Past Progressive: I met her when/while we were working for the same company. After the grammar explanations there’s an exercise in which there’s a sentence where you have to put something. _____ Dick was preparing lunch, he cut his finger badly. I use “when” but – NO what I see in the key section of the book is only one word i.e. WHILE: WHILE Dick was preparing lunch, he cut his finger badly. The question is why can’t I use WHEN in this sentence if the rule permits?
Oct 25, 2014 8:06 AM
Answers · 5
It has to do with the duration of this action. You use "while" for either two long simultaneous actions or for the longer of two actions. In this case, preparing lunch is clearly a long action and it's obviously longer than cutting his finger. Something happened during another action, while the action was happening. Otherwise, he was preparing his lunch when he cut his finger.
October 25, 2014
It's perfectly okay to use "when" in your example, however it's better style to use "while," which emphasizes the duration of the action.
December 26, 2014
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