Thomas

Let's start with our first German word for before.

The preposition for.

The rules here are really quite clear.

You use for before a noun.

So if you want to say before dinner, you would say vor dem Abendessen.

Or before my holiday to Austria.

Vor meinem Urlaub nach Österreich.

Or to give you a full sentence, we could say, don't leave before the break.

Geh nicht.

Vor der Pause.

Okay, so remember, use for with nouns to describe something that happens before another thing.

Helpful to know is that when you're talking or when you're using for to talk about time, then it's always followed by the dative.

That's why we saw vor dem Abendessen or vor meinem Urlaub.

Okay, so for in this context always uses the dative.

Also good to know is that for can mean ago when describing a period of time.

So for example, two years ago, I lived in Spain.

But again, it's used here in front of a noun.

Okay, so there's actually a lot more we could say about the small word for here, but for today, we just focus on its translation as before in English.

Let's move on to word number two, before, the subordinating conjunction.

Now, this time, it's all about actions and activities that happened before something else, meaning we are dealing with verbs this time, not with nouns.