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Recently I came across such sentences in Murphy's grammar:

My camera was stolen when I was in the beach.

and

I used to live near the sea when I was a child.

In these two sentences " when" was the only right conjunction to use. Why can't we use the conjunction "as" here, if it has the meaning "at the same time as"?

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  • in the beach -> at the beach ?
    – Peter
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 3:41
  • Not sure why you are saying when is the "only right conjunction to use". Were there choices to choose from? While would be another correct subordinating conjunction you could use.
    – Peter
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 3:47
  • We had to choose between when and as.
    – Fatimahon
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 3:50
  • It was on the beach.
    – Fatimahon
    Commented Feb 22, 2016 at 7:09

1 Answer 1

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We can say "I finished it as he came in" to mean "I finished it just at the same (point of) time that he came in".

In your two examples, it is not appropriate as you want to refer to a period of time. Here are equivalents:

My camera was stolen during the (period of) time that I was at the beach.

Note that you must use "at", not "in", because the beach is not considered to include the air above it.

I used to live near the sea during the (period of) time that I was a child.

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  • @Fatimahon: You're welcome. If my answer resolved your question, you can mark it as accepted.
    – user21820
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 8:17
  • @Fatimahon: For every question you ask, you can choose to accept one of the posted answers if you feel it best resolves your question, regardless of how other people vote on them. You have indeed successfully accepted an answer on each of the questions you asked, which is indicated to you by the green tick.
    – user21820
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 9:10
  • ThNk you for the reply, I was not sure if I pressed the right button.
    – Fatimahon
    Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 9:29
  • But the Oxford dictionary says that as means during the time that dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/as
    – CITBL
    Commented Oct 27, 2022 at 10:52
  • @CITBL: I'm a native speaker and I know what I wrote is correct. Too bad your lexicon is inaccurate.
    – user21820
    Commented Oct 28, 2022 at 15:59

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