In an English sentence can as and while be used interchangebaly?

Question

I am a fluent English speaker, but anyone can have questions.. right?

An example-

I shut the door to my room as my sister was talking to me.

I shut the door to my room while my sister was talking to me.

I think it changes the meaning of the sentence in a small way...

Thanks, Abhinair66

Answer 1

I think in this sentence,both "as",and "while" are correct,but "while" indicates that she was talking for a long time.

What about if this happened while she had just started to talk? ;-D - chileno, Oct 10, 2013

Answer 2

Thanks for making me think. At first reading "as" sounds odd to me and "while" sounds right. But I can find nothing wrong with "as" and cannot assign any difference in meaning either. This is a very interesting question.

Answer 3

Thanks