BBC Learning English: Prepositions of time: Prepositions with Georgie

Hello, this is Prepositions with Georgie, that’s me, and today we’re looking at the prepositions of time. Pay attention, write notes, because you’ll be using these ones a lot.
Starting with at.
Think of this one as the preposition of exact times.
For example, clock times.
The match starts at 2 pm.
And exact times of day.
It gets colder at sunset.The exception being night.
The bats come out at night.

This isn’t really an exact time of day. It’s more of a longer duration. But we’ll come back to that one.

Next, we have in.
In is for longer periods of time, like months, years, centuries, seasons. For example
My birthday is in November.
I graduated from university in 2013.
My parents were born in the 60s.
It usually snows here in the winter.

Strangely, we also use in for the morning, afternoon, and evening, which aren’t such long periods. Remember, don’t use in for night. Use at. A trick to remember this is, all of the day words that have more than one syllable use in the. All of the one-syllable words use at.

Finally, we have on. This is for shorter periods, like days, dates and holidays. For example,
The meeting is on Tuesday.
The concert is on the 8th of September.
We’ll see each other on Christmas Eve.

I remember the difference between in and on, by imagining a box. If the period of time is long, like a month, the box is big.
I can fit in the box. If the period of time is short, like a day, the box is small. I can’t fit in the box, but I can sit on the box.
Or just memorise this sentence and you’ll always have a model to follow.
Remember to check out the website and download my worksheet to practice.
See you next time.

preposition /ˌprep.əˈzɪʃ.ən/ 前置詞
pay attention /peɪ əˈten.ʃən/ 注意を払う
write notes /raɪt noʊts/ メモを取る
exact times /ɪɡˈzækt taɪmz/ 正確な時間
clock times /klɒk taɪmz/ 時計の時刻
match /mætʃ/ 試合
starts /stɑːrts/ 始まる
sunset /ˈsʌn.set/ 日没
exception /ɪkˈsep.ʃən/ 例外
bats /bæts/ コウモリ
night /naɪt/ 夜
longer duration /ˈlɒŋ.ɡər djʊˈreɪ.ʃən/ 長い期間
in /ɪn/ （前置詞）～の中に
months /mʌnθs/ 月（複数形）
years /jɪərz/ 年（複数形）
centuries /ˈsen.tʃʊr.iz/ 世紀
seasons /ˈsiː.zənz/ 季節
born /bɔːrn/ 生まれる