We useat:
with particular points on the clock:
I’ll see youat five o’clock.
with particular points in the day:
The helicopter took offat middayand headed for the island.
with particular points in the week:
What are you doingat the weekend?
with special celebrations:
At the New Year, millions of people travel home to be with their families(but we sayonyour birthday).
We don’t useatwith the questionWhat time …?in informal situations:
What time are you leaving?(preferred toAt what time are you leaving?)
We useon:
with dates:
We moved into this houseon 25 October 1987.
with a singular day of the week to refer to one occasion:
I’ve got to go to Londonon Friday.
with a plural day of the week to refer to repeated events:
The office is closedon Fridays.(every Friday) In informal situations, we often leave outonbefore plural days:
Do you workSaturdays?
with special dates:
What do you normally doon your birthday?
We usein:
with parts of the day:
I’ll come and see youin the morningfor a cup of coffee, okay?
with months:
We usually go campingin July or August.
with years:
The house was builtin 1835.
with seasons:
The garden is wonderfulin the springwhen all the flowers come out.
with long periods of time:
The population of Europe doubledin the nineteenth century.
Atoron?
We useatto talk about public holidays and weekends, but when we talk about a particular special day or weekend, we useon.
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*Note that American Englishspeakers usually sayon the weekend.
Inoron?
We useinwithmorning, afternoon, eveningandnight, but we useonwhen we talk about a specific morning, afternoon, etc., or when we describe the part of the day.
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Atorin?
In the nightusually refers to one particular night;at nightrefers to any night ingeneral:
I was awakein the night, thinking about all the things that have happened.
‘It’s not safe to travelat night,’ the officer said.
At the endorin the end?
We useat the end(often withof) to talk about the point in time where something finishes. We usein the endto talk about things that happen after a long time or after a series of other events:
At the endof the film, everyone was crying.
Not:In the end of the film…
I looked everywhere for the book but couldn’t find it, soin the endI bought a new copy.
At the beginningorin the beginning?
We useat the beginning(often withof) to talk about the point where something starts. We usually usein the beginningwhen we contrast two situations in time:
At the beginningof every lesson, the teacher told the children a little story.
In the beginning, nobody understood what was happening, but after she explained everything very carefully, things were much clearer.
See also:
At
Other uses ofinwith time
We useinto say how long it takes someone to do something:
He was such a clever musician. He could learn a songin about five minutes.
We use an apostrophe-sconstruction (in a year’s time, in two months’ time) to say when something will happen. We don’t use it to say how long someone takes to do something:
I won’t say goodbye because we’ll be seeing each other againin three days’ time. We can also say in three days, without time, in this example.
He ran the marathonin six hours and 20 minutes.
Not:He ran the marathon in six hours and 20 minutes’ time.
Time expressions withoutat, on, in
We don’t normally useat, onorinbefore timeexpressionsbeginning witheach,every,next, last, some, this, that, one, any, all:
He plays footballevery Saturday.
Are you freenext Mondayat two o’clock?
Last summerwe rented a villa in Portugal.
See also:
Time
Next
At,onandin(time): typical errors
We useonnotatto talk about a particular day:
The two couples were married in two different citieson the same day, 25 years ago.
Not: …at the same day, 25 years ago.
We don’t useatto refer to dates:
The General was killedon 26 August.
Not: …at 26 August.
We useat, notin, withweekend(s):
What do you usually doat the weekend? Do you go away?
Not:What do you usually do in the weekend?
We useinwith months, noton:
They’re going to Australiain Septemberfor a conference.
Not:They’re going to Australia on September…