As native speakers, we absorbed grammar as children simply from being around a language all the time. As adults, while repetition is still the best enforcer of habit, language acquisition doesn't work the same way. Perhaps this is because adults are more self-aware.
This is why I don't agree with the idea that children learn better than adults. If an adult is better at analysis, they can learn faster. Analysis slows down time and centers the mind, therefore allowing an individual to remember something for a later date.
If you know yourself, you can better control yourself.
Take the difference between "in the evening" and "at night". Most native English speakers have probably never thought about why "in" is used for one and "at" is used for the other. Adult English learners may ask for a specific reason why this is. Children may not ask this as they have not been taught in school to assume everything must be mathematical.
Even if there is no rhyme or reason to why we use these phrases, we can spend some time comparing them to other time terms.
With "at 2" and "at noon", we use "at" because we are talking about specific times in the same way we use "at" for specific places like "Meet me at the Walgreens on Main Street."
We use "in the morning" or "in the afternoon" for larger periods in the same way we use "in the room" or "in the box". (Yet, we use "on" for days and "in" for months and years.)
Still, why "in the evening" and "at night" when both are periods of time? Maybe because "night" is much easier to define than "evening". We all know night is when it is dark, but when evening begins is more blurry, especially since the hours of darkness change throughout the year. Evening comes from the Old English ǣfnung, meaning 'the coming of evening, sunset, time around sunset', so it's a lot more loosely defined.
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