Thomas

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.

BEFORE is used for sentence parts that cannot stand on their own.

And I show you what I mean with an example.

We could, for example, say BEFOR ICH IN DIE ARBEIT GEHE, DUSCHE ICH MICH.

Or turn that around, ich dusche mich, I shower, bevor ich in die Arbeit gehe.

So if you translate it and we just take that bit with before, you see we can't just have that as a full sentence because we can't say, before I go to work,

And that's our sentence.

It's a sentence part or to use the correct word.

It's a subordinate clause that cannot stand on its own.