Grade 10 Grammar Lesson 39 At, in and on: Prepositions of time

When do we use ‘at’ when we are talking about time?
When do we ‘in’ when we are talking about time?
What is the difference between ‘at night’ and ‘in the night’?
What is the difference between ‘at the moment’ and ‘in a moment’?
When do we use ‘on’ when we are talking about time?

•  We use at with points of time or periods we think of as points of time.

⇒ With exact points of time (clock time)

⇒ With short holiday periods

⇒ With meal times

⇒ With short periods that we think of as points

⇒ With night when we mean ‘when’s its night’.

⇒ In the phrase at the moment (=now), but note that we say in a moment (=in a short period from now)

•  We use on:

⇒ to talk about a particular day, date, or part of a particular day.

•  We use in:

⇒ When we talk about longer periods of time such as seasons, months, years, decades, centuries, ages etc

⇒ When we talk about how long something takes

⇒ With longer parts of the day

•  We don’t use at, in or on before the words all, any, each, every, last, next, one, some, this, or that followed by a time expression.

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