How to enumerate, like "I have an extra class in the morning, noon and evening"

Question

A: I have an extra class in the morning, an extra class at noon, and an extra class in the evening; and I totally have 3 more classes.

Can I rephrase Sentence A into Sentence B?

B: I have an extra class in the morning, at noon and in the evening.

Is there a word in English which emphasizes "an extra class" can associate with morning and noon and evening?

I feel I need something like "each" or "respectively", but how do I write it? like "I have each extra class in the morning, noon and evening"?

Answer 1

This is a tricky one, and native speakers of English would struggle to create a sentence that (1) has your intended meaning, (2) is unambiguous, and (3) sounds natural. Here's one example:

I have one extra class at each of these times: in the morning, at noon and in the evening.

This sentence does (1) and (2), but not (3) because it is too wordy. A big problem with getting this sentence simpler is that "the morning" and "the evening" take the preposition "in", while "noon" takes "at". So, we could make it a bit simpler by changing "noon" to "afternoon":

I have one extra class in each of the morning, afternoon and evening.

This achieves (1) and (2), but still sounds somewhat wordy.

The most natural I can come up with is:

I have an extra class in the morning, another at noon, and a third in the evening.

Answer 2

For completeness, since @gotube's answer is already good, you also have the option of saying:

I have an extra class in the morning, one at noon, and another in the evening.

Answer 3

I agree that "native speakers of English would struggle to create a sentence that (1) has your intended meaning, (2) is unambiguous, and (3) sounds natural". That said, my knee-jerk inclination (as a native English speaker) would be to say:

I have extra classes in the morning, noon, and evening.

Note that the plural "classes" implies that the following list of times enumerates when the extra classes occur. I think in most cases this would be understood correctly, but if you were paranoid about ambiguity, you might say:

I have extra classes; one in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening.

This second version (which is basically the answers already given) would also be more likely if you had more than three total [extra] classes. For example:

I have extra classes; two in the morning, one at noon, and one in the evening.

(At that point, I would start to wonder when your non-extra classes occur! 🙂)

Answer 4

I think your option B is fine:

I have an extra class in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.

It unambiguously communicates that you are taking exactly three extra classes, and when they occur. It's a bit wordy but the downside with Matthew's alternative,

I have extra classes in the morning, noon, and evening.

is that the listener might not understand that you are taking exactly three extra classes (rather than at least one in each of those time slots).

I might also say

I have an extra class in the morning, early afternoon, and evening.

if it's not crucial that the second class takes place exactly at noon.

Answer 5

One could also say "I have an extra class ... morning, noon, and evening."