[General] at leisure

[Silverobama]

Hi.

Are my sentences natural with "at leisure"?

1) I am seldom at leisure.
2) He read books at his leisure.
3) Marry in haste, and repent at leisure.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The first isn't. More natural:

- I don't get much rest.
- I don't have a lot of spare time.
- I don't have much spare time.
- I'm always busy.
- I don't get much down time.
- I'm a gal/guy on the go.

 

[emsr2d2]

I thought you were writing all these example sentences yourself. That's clearly not the case with sentence #3, which is a well-known idiom, with a comma or a semi-colon instead of "and". What makes you think it's not natural?

#2 doesn't work for me. We'd use "in his spare/free time". Also, did you mean to use the past simple "read". If you're talking about a previous habit, then it's OK.

He read books in his spare time = He used to read books in his spare time.

 

[Silverobama]

Hi, Ems.

No, I don't write most of the sentences myself but some. I remember I once said this. I wrote down some of these sentences from my Chinese-English dictionaries or online dictionaries many years ago. But I did write some of the sentences. As for that well-known idiom, I didn't know until I read your comments.