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Parts of the day drop the preposition

When you talk about your daily routine in English, you rely heavily on prepositions. You wake up in the morning, you work in the afternoon, and you go to sleep at night. Native English speakers naturally look for a French preposition to translate these little words, but French takes a much simpler approach.

For parts of the day like matin, après-midi, soir, and nuit, French completely drops the preposition. To indicate when an action happens, you only need the definite article.

Word list
après-midiA1 afternoon l'après-midi = in the afternoon matinmA1 morning le matin = in the morning nuitfA1 night la nuit = at night soirmA1 evening le soir = in the evening
How it works

To say that an action happens during a specific part of the day, French places the definite article right before the noun. You do not need to use words like dans or à.

For example, to say "in the morning", you just say le matin. To say "in the afternoon", because the word starts with a vowel, you use l'après-midi. This structure is clean and direct. If you try to add a preposition and say dans le matin, a French speaker will understand you, but it will sound quite unnatural.

Le matin, je bois un grand café.
(In the morning, I drink a large coffee.)
Il lit les informations le matin.
(He reads the news in the morning.)
Nous nous reposons l'après-midi.
(We rest in the afternoon.)
Les enfants jouent dans le parc l'après-midi.
(The children play in the park in the afternoon.)
Evening and night

The pattern continues as the day goes on. For the evening, you use the masculine noun soir to say le soir. When it gets completely dark, you switch to the feminine noun nuit and say la nuit, which translates to "at night".

Notice how English switches from "in the" to "at" when talking about the night. French remains wonderfully consistent. Whether it is morning, afternoon, evening, or night, you just use the definite article.

Je regarde souvent la télévision le soir.
(I often watch television in the evening.)
Le soir, les rues sont calmes.
(In the evening, the streets are quiet.)
Les chats voient très bien la nuit.
(Cats see very well at night.)
Il fait froid la nuit en hiver.
(It is cold at night in winter.)
Habits and specific days

There is a small detail to keep in mind about how French speakers use these phrases. Using the definite article with a part of the day very often implies a habit. When you say le matin, it usually means "in the morning" in a general sense, or "in the mornings".

Le matin, je cours avec mon chien.
(In the mornings, I run with my dog.)

If you want to talk about one specific morning, you drop the article and use a word meaning "this" instead, like ce matin, which means "this morning".

Additionally, while French does not use prepositions for these basic time expressions, you might occasionally see prepositions used with longer duration words. For instance, French uses words like matinée or soirée to emphasise the entire duration of the morning or evening. With those specific words, you might see a preposition, like dans la matinée (during the course of the morning). However, for the basic parts of the day, always stick to just the definite article.

Summary

When you want to say that something happens "in the morning", "in the afternoon", "in the evening", or "at night", leave your prepositions behind. Just use the definite article followed by the part of the day. Remember le matin, l'après-midi, le soir, and la nuit, and your spoken French will instantly sound more natural.