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As he finished his speech, the audience burst into applause.

Doesn't "as" suggest the two actions happened simultaneously? But they could not happen simultaneously. The audience applauded as soon as he finished hi speech. There is a sequence of actions. So I think "when" works and "as" does not.

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Just like you've said, in this case as is used when two events are happening simultaneously. The audience might have started laughing as he was uttering his last words of the joke, or even at the time when he finished the joke. I don't see any problem with the sentence.

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  • What if I use "when"? Does it have a little different meaning?
    – Stephen Liu
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 0:42
  • Yes, the meaning changes a little. "When he finished his speech, the audience burst into applause." implies that the audiences started laughing after he finished his speech.
    – tamuno
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 12:56
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' AS ' when used as a conjunction goes to mean amongst others, ' at the time that' ; 'during the time when'; ' while' ; 'with the result that it is' according to Wiktionary. To illustrate it gives the example that corroborates your example:

As I came in, she fled.

So " as" exactly serves the function of " when " , and there is nothing wrong whatsoever.

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  • "As I came in, she fled" means differently from "When I came in, she fled".
    – Stephen Liu
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 0:54

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