This was how things worked not very long ago.

就在不久前发生了这样的事。

youdao

Not very long ago, it was also unthinkable that a virus would shut down nations and that safety nets would be proven so disastrously lacking in flexibility.

不久以前，人们还无法想象一种病毒能使众多国家封闭，而安全网被证明是如此灾难性地缺乏灵活性。

youdao

Kangaroos' tails are not very long.

袋鼠的尾巴不是很长。

youdao

Parson Walker's wife was very sick once, for a long time, and it seemed as if they were not going to save her.

VOA: special.2009.08.29

It came into existence as part of, along with, the creation of my body, and it won't continue to exist, at least not very long, after the destruction of my body.

它的出现,是伴随着我身体的出现而产生的,在我死后它就不存在了,至少在我身体死亡之后不会存活很长时间

耶鲁公开课 - 死亡课程节选

I think a lot of people, especially the Chinese leaders, the decision-makers, realized that that's not going to last very long.

许多中国人，尤其是领导人，决策者们，意识到这不能持续很久。

斯坦福公开课 - 百度CEO李彦宏演讲：全球最大搜索引擎的发展课程节选

Not very long ago, Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart had the world at their feet.

FORBES

And we spent maybe about five minutes or so, not very long, talking about the case.

CNN: Transcript: White House Deputy Counsel Mills' statement

The book is not very long, nor was the lunch, but my reading list has just grown.

FORBES: Managing Disequilibrium