BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

English In A Minute
Last vs For the last vs In the last
This is not a word-for-word transcript

Saskia
We're going to talk about the difference between last, for the last and in the last
when talking about time.

I went to the doctor's twice last week / last month / last year. Last week, last
month and last year, here, are talking about the week, month and year before this
one. There is no connection to now. It is before now.

And what do we say when we want to talk about the day before this one? We just
say 'yesterday', right? And we say 'yesterday morning', 'yesterday afternoon',
'yesterday evening', but last night.

I've had the flu for the last week, so I've come to work only once in the last
week. In both cases, we are talking about the period of time from a week ago until
now.

With for the last week, I've had the flu every day. It's continuous over a week.

With in the last week, I have come to work only once within that time.

Can you think of something you did last week? And what's one thing you've done
in the last week and something else you've done for the last week?

English In A Minute ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2020

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