Learn English Phrases: No Later Than / No Earlier Than

Business English Course

Hello students. It’s Shayna from Espressoenglish.net and today I want to answer a student who asked about the phrase “Please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before the interview.” This student saw this phrase and wanted to know what exactly does it mean and is it the same or different as the phrase “Please arrive no later than 30 minutes before the interview.” Today, let me clarify these two phrases.

No earlier than

Let’s imagine that the interview is at 5:00. At 5:00, the interview will start, so 30 minutes before the interview would be what time? 4:30, right. Let me write that down. 30 minutes before the interview is 4:30.

If they ask you please arrive no earlier than 4:30, that means you can arrive at 4:30, 4:45, 4:50, 4:55, or 4:59, but you can’t arrive earlier than 4:30. That’s what it means please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before the interview, so don’t arrive at 4:00, don’t arrive at 4:15.

I’m guessing if somebody like a company gives a direction like this, please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before the interview that people were arriving too early and they were coming one hour early or 45 minutes early and then they had to wait a very long time. To prevent people from coming arriving to early, the company asks people please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before. OK?

No later than

Now, is it the same or different as the phrase please arrive no later than 30 minutes before the interview? Well, it’s exactly the opposite. If you see the phrase “Please arrive no later than 30 minutes before the interview,” that means you must arrive earlier. You have to arrive before 4:30. 4:30 is the maximum. That is the latest time you should arrive.

In this case, if they say please arrive no later than 30 minutes before the interview and the interview is at 5:00, then they want you to arrive before 4:30. OK?

• Learn more: Then vs. Than

Learning English for work

I know these phrases can be a little bit confusing, but if they say please arrive no earlier than 4:30 that means don’t arrive too early, come between 4:30 and 5:00. If they say please arrive no later than 4:30, that means they want you to arrive early, so you should come before 4:30. Got it?

I know a lot of Espresso English students are learning English for work or learning English to get a job in a company that speaks English or a multinational company, and I have a course that can help you with that. It’s called the Business English Course and there’s a link in this video or above this video, rather. In this course, I teach you English phrases that you can use in almost any job when speaking English.

That’s English phrases for interviews, for talking about things and people and relationships in the office, phrases for meetings and presentations, which can be very stressful if you’re not a native English speaker to participate in a meeting or give a presentation in English, but I’ll give you specific phrases you can use in those situations and a lot of other topics.

You can see the complete lesson list if you click on the link to the Business English Course. OK? I hope to see you inside the course and your homework for today is to leave on comment on this video telling me about your most recent job interview. Describe the interview, tell me maybe one question that they asked you and how you responded, and I look forward to reading your comments. Thanks guys, I’ll see you in the next lesson.

Learn more:

• Basic English phrases
• Intermediate English phrases
• Advanced English phrases

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