Time noun means the noun indicates the time and can be indicated by 这个时候and那个时候such as 去年、星期一、今天、凌晨、早上、中午、晚上、周末、现在、刚才、过去、从前、将来, etc. The time noun signifies the time point. When you study in Mandarin leaning courses, teachers would tell you that time noun can be functioned as subject, object and attribute, just like the ordinary noun like 春节快到了、在将来and今天的报纸来了吗？

However, the different point with the ordinary noun is that the time noun can be used as predicate when it indicates the time like festival, week and month such as明天圣诞节and昨天星期天. In addition, the time noun can act as the object of 在and到while the ordinary nouns doesn’t. Accordingly, we can say在过去but it is wrong to say 在学生.

But foreigners who learn Chinese online free should know that the biggest difference between the ordinary noun and the time noun is that the latter can function as adverbial modifier like 我们明天去吧. Some time nouns indicate the time point while some imply a period of time. For some examples, 三点、今天、星期一、四月indicate the time point while the words and phrases like三个小时、一天and一个星期show the time period,

Generally speaking, the time nouns indicate time points functioned as adverbial modifier in sentences, showing the time of things happen. For example, 我明天出发去马来西亚. It can be a small point and a larger point like 五点and五月. When you learn Chinese language, you should know time noun indicates time period often act as complement, indicating the time of the actions last like我在北京生活三年了.

Sometimes, the time period can also act as the adverbial modifier for the purpose of expressing the time that the following actions experienced. You can say 他三天没来上课了.