Thank you. It’s helpful and useful for and any English Learn.
Wow! I don’t actually use either of these! I use “on the weekend”. I have heard both: “on weekend” (most often used and heard) and “over the weekend” (least often used and heard). I grew up in San Francisco CA USA.
Usage is a regional thing.
For me the difference between “during the weekend” and “over the weekend” is that “over the weekend” is much more common and “during the weekend” sounds wrong, sounds like a quick fix for not knowing what preposition to use in such phrases as “in the morning”, “in the afternoon”, “at night”, “in the evening”, “on Monday”, “in June”, on September third, etc.
during the week…yeah!
during the weekend…“logical” maybe but to my native ear and experience it sounds wrong.
over the weekend…okay
on the weekend…yeah!
Thank you, @brucenator, for providing this brilliant example:
What did you do this past weekend?
We took a little road trip this past weekend.
I was proud over my speaking skills in English when, on my way to my holiday this summer, I sat beside an English speaker and was able to engage a conversation with him during several hours of our flight. The guy was not a native speaker but his English was of a high level – he’s a well educated Anglophone. How bad or good my English was he would tell, but that was a very good opportunity for me to practice my English and I enjoyed it.
Another little opportunity was when it was time to confirm my flight back. This wasn’t a big deal, I called the agency and it was done in a couple of minutes. Ones again, I said to myself: Yes, I can!
On my way back another opportunity showed up. I stopped to a McDonald’s restaurant and after the meal I was about to enter my car when two youngsters, on their way to the same restaurant, greeted me, in Swedish, and one of them said: A road trip?
I couldn’t figure out what he said to me until he said that in Swedish (I asked him, in Swedish, what he meant). This time, I was less proud and to some extent ashamed. But, by then, if there’s a vocab that comfortably and forever sits in my memory is: A road trip.
Well, a luta continua!
I think the main thing is that you’re excited about and engaged in learning. As long as you enjoy it, that’s all that matters.
I don’t think you should feel ashamed if you don’t understand an expression that you think you should already know or that seems as though it should be simple to understand (but believe me, I understand the feeling). The main thing is that it is now locked into your memory.
Somehow for me “over the weekend” sounds like I’m doing something on both Saturday and Sunday. “I’ll be reading the book over the weekend.”
“I’m going to eat pizza on the weekend” (at one point)
“I’m going to eat pizza over the weekend” (all weekend long…)