Hi students, it's Shayna, your teacher from espressoenglish.net and today I'm going to answer a very good question from a student who asked about the difference between while and when because they seem to mean the same thing. We use while and when when two things are happening at the same time. So before I get started, I hope you're watching me live today and if you're here watching this lesson then please like it so that I know you are watching. Alright so this is a really good question about while and when and I actually had to do some research and think about it a little bit in order to give you a clear answer. So let me explain. We use while and when when two things are happening at the same time. Now when we have two continuous actions happening at the same time then we usually use while. Okay so right now I'm recording a video while my husband is working. We have two continuous actions. I'm recording and my husband is working so I'm recording a video while my husband is working or here's an example in the past. Last night I was watching TV while my father was sleeping. So again we have two continuous actions. I was watching TV and my father was sleeping. I was watching TV while my father was sleeping. So with two continuous actions we usually use while. Now when we have two single actions that happen at the same time or one happens right after another one then we tend to use when. For example I picked up the phone when it rang. Okay so first the phone rang and then immediately I picked up the phone. You can see that we have two verbs there in the simple past. Not continuous okay the phone rang and I picked up. So I picked up the phone when it rang. We have two single actions that happened very close together almost at the same time and so we use when. Another good example would be when I get home I take off my shoes. Okay so that's also two single actions. I get home and I take off my shoes. When I get home I take off my shoes or you could say it the other way I take off my shoes when I get home. Alright so both while and when are used when two things happen at the same time but we tend to use while with two continuous actions and when with two single actions and we also use when with ages so for example I got my driver's license when I was 16 years old okay we wouldn't say while I was 16 years old with ages we use when or I went to Brazil for the first time when I was 19. Okay when you have an age then use when. I could also have a continuous verb for example when I was 25 I was working in New York City so I there I have a continuous action but because I'm talking about a specific time period when I was 25 I use when and not while okay I was working in New York City when I was 25 years old. Now things start to get a little more complicated when you have two actions but one is a single action and one is continuous so that would be an example like this. He called while or when I was sleeping so now we have one continuous action I was sleeping and we have one single action he called well in this case you can actually use either one you can say he called while I was sleeping or you can say he called when I was sleeping they're both correct all right now we usually use while or when before a continuous action but if I change the sentence around and the word comes before the single action then I use when and not while so if I say I was sleeping when he called then I have to use when because it comes before a single action but if the word comes before the continuous action and we have a one time and a continuous then I can use either one he called while I was sleeping or he called when I was sleeping another good example of this would be if you're driving home from work and you get into an accident you could say I got into an accident that's the single action while I was driving home or when I was driving home both are correct but if we change the sentence around then we would say I was driving home from work when I got into an accident because when in this case comes before the single action okay I would love to see you try these words out by leaving a comment using either while or when or both okay so leave a comment and I will let you know if it's correct and if you've been watching this video and you love my lessons you might be thinking well I want to take a course with Shayna but I have actually a lot of courses and you might be wondering which one to take or which one to start with well the good news is that if you actually want to get all of my courses that's everything from business English to speaking vocabulary and all of my e-books on confusing words and collocations and slang then there's actually a pretty big discount you can get a 35% discount if you buy what I call the complete program which is all of the espresso English e-books and courses so if you're interested in that please check out the link in this video I hope you've learned a little bit more today about when to use while and when to use when thank you so much for your question thanks for watching and I will see you next time bye bye