English Grammar - By or Until?

hi my name is Emma and today we're going to be talking about a very important piece of grammar we're going to be looking at by versus until fivers is until these are time prepositions that many students have difficulty with I have countless students who ask me what is the difference they make mistakes on tests on essays so today we're going to look at what are these differences and some tricks to remember the differences between them okay so first let's start with until until like I said it's a preposition of time until is a bit formal you can also use till it has the same meaning as until and it's a little bit informal so until is formal til is informal so when do we use these well we use them when we're talking about a situation or event that will continue up to a certain time okay so a situation or event will continue up to a certain kind of time sorry and a key word here is continue up to all right so if you're not following me yet that's okay when you look at the examples it's going to become a bit clearer so let's look at example number one okay I worked until 7 p.m. I worked until 7 p.m. so what we're saying is that before 7 p.m. I was at work maybe I started work at 1 p.m. so from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. I'm at work at 7 p.m. I stopped work so we're saying my action of working for the situation is working I continue working up to 7 p.m. after 7 7 p.m. I finish all right let's look at example number two I can use my parents car until 5 p.m. I can use my parents car until 5 p.m. now I don't know if you've noticed there's a bit of a mistake in the sentence I have forgotten the apostrophe here to show possession whose car is it my parent's car okay so back to the example what is the situation here we're talking about we're talking about using my parents car so I'm allowed to use my parents car well maybe it's 1:00 p.m. I start driving their car and I have it until 5:00 p.m. which means after 5:00 p.m. I have to give their car back I can't use it anymore maybe they want to go out with it themselves so again I'm allowed to use my parents car so that continues up to 5:00 p.m. after 5:00 p.m. I can't use their car anymore alright finally number three we had to stay in the exam room until the end of the exam so we had to stay in the exam room until the end of the exam so what this situation is talking about is you start your exam you're sitting there writing your exam and then you finish your exam but you're not allowed to leave the room so the situation is staying in the exam room when does the situation end it ends at the end of the exam so you have to stay in the room and continue doing this up to the end of the exam so for any of you university students out there this has probably happened to you where you're not allowed to leave until the exam actually comes to a close ok so now what we are going to do is we are going to look at the expression by ok so now let's look at by we've just looked at until by is similar to until because they're both prepositions of time but by is very different than until when we're talking about by we're talking about a situation or something will happen before so keyword before or at a certain time it doesn't happen after that time so let's look at some examples to help you out with this number one I need to return my movie by January 12 so I don't know how many of you guys subscribe to Netflix or download movies from the internet but I still like to go to the video store and rent movies unfortunately blockbuster has closed down I think in Canada so it's becoming a bit more challenging to find places to rent movies from but if I borrow a movie from Blockbuster I need to return my movie by the due date what does buy mean here it means before or at the latest on January 12 any time after that if I decide I want to watch this movie again and I return it on January 13 it's going to be late I'm going to have to pay money in late fees so I need to return my movie by means before or on January 12 example number 2 I will finish my homework by 4:00 p.m. I will finish my homework by 4:00 p.m. so again by here can either mean before before 4:00 p.m. I will finish my homework or it can mean exactly at 4:00 p.m. but no later than 4:00 p.m. at 4:01 I will already be done my homework all right let's look at the third example we use by a lot actually when we're making goals so New Year's is coming up a lot of you might be making New Year's resolutions where you set goals for yourself for the new year so I'm just going to give you an example of maybe a goal some of you might have I will quit smoking by the summer I will quit smoking by the summer or maybe your goal is different maybe you want to learn scuba diving I will learn scuba diving by the summer or by the fall by the spring again what by means is just before in this case it really means before I will quit smoking before the summer I will learn scuba diving before the summer so now we're going to look at by the time so let's look at by the time so by the time means the exact same thing as by when we use by the time we're talking about either before an event or a situation or up to sorry not up to before the event or on the specific date or time so the only difference between by and by the time is we use by the time before a verb so let's look at some examples number one the subway was closed by the time I left work so this means the subway was closed before I left work so I wasn't able to catch the subway number two the thief was gone by the time I called the police so again by the time means before or maybe at the act moment I called the police but no later so the thief was gone before the time I called the police all right so now let's do some questions to look at the differences between until and by and to see if you can how well you know the difference between the two all right so let's look at some examples of bye and until so I want you guys to do this at home fill in the blank and then we'll see if you're correct so for number one I will stay at party midnight do you think there's a mistake in this first off mmm I'll stay at the party midnight okay good so for those of you who caught that mistake very good now let's look at what this is do you have any guess what do you think it is until or by if you said until you're correct I will stay at the party until midnight meaning up to midnight I will continue to stay at the party and then after midnight I leave all right let's look at number two I studied 7:00 p.m. what do you think it is I studied 7:00 p.m. if you said until you're correct I studied until 7 p.m. then I stopped studying so again you're you maybe you started studying at 3 p.m. from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. you're studying you're continuing to study after 7 p.m. you're not studying anymore number three I will finish my essay February what do you think I will finish my essay February well if you said bye you're correct remember when we use bye you can even use before I will finish my essay by February I will finish my essay before February it means almost the same thing at the very latest you will finish your essay February first all right final one now this is a little tricky so let's see what you think it is I will be at the restaurant 8:00 p.m. I will be at the restaurant 8:00 p.m. now this one is going to be more confusing than the others because you could say both bye and until if you use by the sentence will have a different meaning than if you use until so what is the difference well if I say I will be at the restaurant by 8:00 p.m. it means I will be at the restaurant either before 8:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. at the latest I'm not going to be at the restaurant at 8:01 and this is really talking about arriving at what time will you arrive at the restaurant I will be at the restaurant by 8:00 p.m. meaning either before 8:00 p.m. or exactly at 8:00 p.m. not 801 well what about if we use until I will be at the restaurant until 8:00 p.m. I will be at the restaurant until 8:00 p.m. this has a completely different meaning what it means is you will continue to be at the restaurant so you're already at the restaurant you're going to stay at the restaurant up to 8:00 p.m. and then you're going to leave so you see how bye and until completely changes the meaning of the sentence in the case of bye we're talking about before in the case of until we're talking about up to so the difference again is very big so be very very careful with this and one other thing the meaning of will be kind of takes on a different meaning depending on if you use bio too if you're using bi will be means more like arrived I will be at the restaurant by 8:00 p.m. I will arrive at the restaurant at 8:00 p.m. or before 8:00 p.m. well with until it will be means more stay okay so I hope you found this lesson helpful by the time you finish watching more of our videos I'm sure you'll be experts at English so until next time take care Oh before I finish actually feel free to take our exam at wwm vidcom until next time you

Channel: English with Emma · engVid

Views: 1,028,590

Keywords: grammar, english-grammar, English grammar, vocabulary, English vocabulary, prepositions, by, until, time, ESL, English speaking, learn English, learn-english, Learn English, engvid, beginner, english-speaking, TOEFL, IELTS, educational, lessons, lesson, instruction, anglais, inglese, inglés, Englisch, англи́йский, inglês, angielski, engleză, anglicky, αγγλικά, İngilizce, إنجليزي, Inggris, Angol

Id: tHt2aqzUtYI

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2012