italki – At breakfast or at breakfast time? When talking about the specific time when a person in having brea

While talking about the specific time that a person might be having breakfast, do we say “at breakfast” or “at breakfast time?” Is it the same for lunch, coffee, and dinner?

“at breakfast” can be used in slang but it may not be proper grammar. “have breakfast”, “during breakfast”, “during breakfast” are other uses. Here are some sentence examples for when this phrase is used, and similar situations:
“We can talk about football while we are at/having breakfast.”
“I am not ready yet, I am having/eating breakfast.”
“I read the paper during my breakfast.”

“at breakfast time” can also be used in slang and common speech, but may not be proper.
you could say…
“We only sit together for breakfast time” “I watch television when it’s breakfast time” or “Between 6 and 7am is my breakfast time”.
and to call out that it is right now breakfast, one would say “it’s breakfast time!” or simply “Breakfast time!”

for Lunch
“Let’s talk about it over lunch” “I can’t right now, it’s my lunch time”
“I’ll have a drink while I’m having lunch”

For coffee… it may be different depending on whether you are learning British English or American English because Americans don’t have a specific time of the day for coffee. They drink it all the time! We don’t do “tea-time” and “coffee-time”. Here are american examples for coffee:
“My eyes are closing so I think it is now time for coffee.”
“Right now I’ll have my coffee.”
“Let’s take a coffee break”

for dinner
“It’s dinner time!”
“We all sit together for dinner.”
“I talk a lot during dinner.”

Hope this helps!