Weekend or Weekends? What is the difference?

Weekend is the singular noun so it means one weekend. Weekends is the plural noun so we use it when there is more than one weekend.

When to use weekend?

We use weekend when we talk about one weekend. The weekend is Saturday and Sunday when you have leisure time and no school or work. Friday evening could also be considered the weekend.

We usually use this/next/last with weekend because we are talking about one specific weekend.

I went to the park last weekend.

I want to go to a restaurant this weekend.

Next weekend is my grandmother’s birthday.

When to use weekends?

We use weekends when we talk about more than one weekend.

Often, we use weekends to talk about things in general or routines so it is common to use the present simple tense.

I play tennis on the weekends?

What do you do with your weekends?

On the weekend or At the weekend or In the weekend?

On the weekend is American English.

At the weekend is British English.

~~In the weekend is incorrect.~~

What are you doing on the weekend?(American English)

What are you doing at the weekend?(British English)

~~What are you doing in the weekend?~~(Incorrect)

On weekends On the weekend? What is the difference?

The main difference is that “weekends” is plural and “weekend” is singular.

In my experience, it is more common to use the plural form “on weekends” in American English than “at weekends” in British English.

Is Weekend hyphenated?

No, weekend is not hyphenated. It is one word,

So,

~~Week end~~ and ~~week-end~~ are incorrect.

“Have a nice weekend” or “Have a nice weekends”?

When you want to wish someone a good weekend(Probably on a Friday) you should say “Have a nice weekend”.

“~~Have a nice weekends~~” is incorrect because we are only talking about one weekend.

“The weekend” Why use “the”?

When we use “the weekend” we are signaling that we are talking about the weekend coming.

We use the article “the” when it is understood that we are talking about a specific thing, in this case “this weekend”.

Example conversation on a Friday:

What are you doing for the weekend?

It is understood that we are talking about this weekend because it is Friday.

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Conor

Conor is the main writer here at One Minute English and was an English teacher for 10 years. He is interested in helping people with their English skills and learning about using A.I tools at work.