Thomas

Now, in the last episode we had a good look at FOR, BEFORE and DAFOR, all meaning BEFORE in English.

If you missed that or if you're not familiar with the differences between those words, then I would recommend listening to the previous episode first.

If you do know what I'm talking about already, then today will be easy for you because the rules for after and during are very similar.

Also, worauf warten wir noch?

Let's have a look at nach, nachdem, danach and während.

Let's start with our first word and that's the easiest one.

Nach, the preposition.

Now, just like we used for plus a noun to say before, we can do the same with nach.

We can use nach plus a noun to say after.

For example, nach der Arbeit would be after work or nach meinem Unfall would be after my accident.

Now this also works if you want to describe activities like after swimming, we could say nach dem Schwimmen or after playing cards, nach dem Kartenspielen.

Notice how in German these activities are still treated as nouns and have a capital letter, even if they originate from a verb.

You also probably noticed that nach in this context of time is always followed by the dative, because we saw lots of M's there.

Have a look at this other example sentence.

Nach einem Besuch in der Sauna fühle ich mich wie neu.

So after a visit, and a visit is in the detive, einem Besuch to the sauna, I feel like a new person.

Okay, nach plus noun means after.

Weiter geht's.

Our second word for after is nachdem.

Now with nachdem, we are back to those incomplete sentence parts that are called subordinate clauses.