Prepositions of time

ON

We use ON for days and dates

on Monday/Mondays, on 1st August, on Valentines Day, on your birthday

NOTE that we also say….

on Monday morning, on Saturday afternoon

AT

We use AT for the time of day

at 2pm at 6pm at 11pm at noon at midnight

AT can be used with special days if they don’t have the word ‘day’ in them!

at Christmas, at Easter, at Halloween

IN

We use IN when talking about months

In January, In May, In August

We use IN when talking about seasons

In Spring, In summer, in Autumn, In Winter

We use IN when talking about years and decades

In 1989, in the 1980s (or just in the 80s)

We use IN when talking about centuries and eras

In the 1900s, in the 20th century, in the middle ages

We use IN to talk about time in the future

I’ll be back in a few minutes

See you in an hour

It starts in a week

You can also say…

in a week’s time, in 10 years’ time

You can also use IN to say how long something took

They built their house in 2 years = it took them 2 years to build their house

IN can also be used for times of the day with ‘the morning’, ‘the evening’ etc etc

in the morning, in the evening, in the afternoon

ZERO

If you use next / last / this / every there is no preposition

Can you come over next week?

We went there last Saturday

See you this afternoon

We go swimming every weekend

Now time to practise!