Is it 'on the weekend' or 'in the weekend'? Knowing which phrase to use can be tricky if you’ve been struggling with prepositions on your path to learning the English language (or you’re just brushing up on what you’ve learned in elementary school). But once you get the hang of prepositions, you’ll be able to quickly determine which phrase is correct.
The answer is that ‘on the weekend’ is the correct way to say the phrase rather than ‘in the weekend.’
As you just learned, the correct way to say the phrase is ‘on the weekend.’ ‘In the weekend’ doesn’t make grammatical sense.
There's also another variation of the phrase that is just as acceptable.
For example, the phrase ‘over the weekend’ is also acceptable to say in the English language.
Learning how to use the phrase correctly in a sentence means you may need to see some examples.
Take a look at a few examples of how to use the phrases correctly:
Prepositions can be tricky to understand when learning English for the first time. A preposition is defined as a word or group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, or spatial relationships or to introduce an object.
Some of the basic rules for prepositions include:
Examples of words that are prepositions include:
To describe a direction, you’d use the words “in,” “to,” “into,” “on,” and “onto.”
If you’re talking about a point in time, you’d use prepositions like “on,” “in,” and “at.”
For places, you might use prepositions like “inside,” “over,” “at,” “in,” “on,” “below,” “beneath,” “underneath,” “by,” “next to,” “between,” “among,” or “near.”
Spatial relationships might utilize prepositions like “through,” “against,” “across,” “above,” “behind,” “around,” “toward,” and “among.”
You need to know how to use each preposition appropriately, like whether it’s better to say ‘in or within’ in any given circumstance.
It wouldn’t be correct to say you did something ‘in the weekend.’ It just doesn’t make grammatical sense.
However, you might hear people say something like, “The weather’s been pretty bad as we head into the weekend.”
Saying in this manner is acceptable and appropriate, but you’d never say you’re going to do something ‘in the weekend’ or ‘into the weekend.’
You might say something’s happening as you head ‘into the weekend.’ So make sure you never use this if you want to use the correct phrase.
Now that you know it’s okay to say ‘on the weekend’ and even ‘over the weekend,’ you’ll be able to use the phrases correctly from now on.
But don’t beat yourself up if you get tripped up on anything – phrases like this and Interested In/Interested On, On Friday/In Friday, and Has Been/Have Been/Had Been.
There’s no easy rule to help you remember which is the correct way to say it. But you can always come back here and browse our library of confusing words – it’s filled with tons of useful articles on commonly confused English words and phrases, including idioms. Go check it out.
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