Longis an adjective or anadverb.
We can uselongto talk about time, distance or length.
Time
We uselongas an adverb in questions and negative clauses to talk about duration:
A:Howlonghas Valerie been staying with you?
B:She arrived in January, so she’s been here for four months.
Marco didn’t staylongat the party.
Don’t belong.
We don’t uselongon its own in affirmative clauses. We often use (for)a long time:
We waitedfor a long timein the rain for the bus.
Not: …waited long…
They tooka long timegetting here.
Not:They took long…
We can uselongin affirmative clauses withtoo,enoughandso:
A month istoo longto wait for an appointment.
We’ve waitedlong enoughfor a reply. I think we need to phone them.
You tookso long. What were you doing?
When we talk about actual amounts of time, we can use phrases with time +long, or phrases likeall day long, all month long:
The lecture wasthree hours long.
We workedall day long.
We can also usea long time ago,long agoorlong beforeto refer to a time many years in the past:
This castle was builta long time ago.(or …was builtlong ago.)
Long beforeyou were born, there was a factory here. It was closed in the 1960s.
We uselongas an adjective:
You’re home already. That can’t have been a verylongfilm.
Distance
We can use the phrasea long wayto talk about distance:
My house isa long wayfrom the station. You’ll have to take a taxi.
It’sa long wayto the nearest petrol station.
In negative statements and questions we usually usefar:
My house is notfarfrom the station.
Is itfarto the beach?
Length
We uselongto talk about the length of something:
It was three metreslongand four metres wide.
Howlongis the boat?
This is such alongqueue. It’s going to take at least an hour.
As long as
The phraseas long asis used as a conjunction. It means ‘on condition that’:
As long asthe weather is okay, we’re going to paint the house tomorrow.
Jenny said she’d come to the partyas long aswe don’t stay too late.
See also:
Conditionals
Conjunctions
No longerandnot any longer
We can use the phrasesno longerandnot … any longerto refer to something that used to exist or happen but does not exist or happen now:
There areno longerany family bakeries in our town.
A:Are you still working at the garden centre?
B:No,not any longer.
See also:
Any moreoranymore?
Typical error
We can’t uselongon its own in affirmative sentences:
A:Will it takelong?
B:No, it won’t takelong. (orYes, it’ll takea long time.)
Not:Yes, it’ll take long.