Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Einen wunderschönen guten Tag und willkommen bei Coffee Break German. My name is Thomas and for today's episode I have picked one of your all-time favorite topics. German grammar. Well, actually, today it's a little bit of grammar and a little bit of vocabulary because we are having a look at three different German words that all mean the exact same word in English.
The challenge here is to know when to choose which word. And that all depends on the grammatical construction we use for our sentence.
Chapter 2: What are the three German words for 'before'?
Also, let's have a look at vor, bevor and davor. The three German words for before. 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. 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. It's not a complete sentence. And that's why we added in our example. I have a shower. I take a shower before I go to work. I take a shower or the other way around. I take a shower before I go to work. But we need that other part here to make it complete.
You probably already know this from using weil or das, that in a subordinate clause, the verb is always placed at the end. And that's why we hit, bevor ich in die Arbeit gehe. So the verb here is at the very end. Also, aufschreiben. Before is used with sentence parts that can't stand alone. These are called subordinate clauses. And the verb always goes to the end.
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Chapter 3: When should you use 'vor' in German?
Gut. Now we've seen what words to use with nouns, for, and we've seen before that we use with subordinate clauses. But what about sentences like, I will practice my German, but I am drinking my coffee before that. Now these are two separate sentences. I will practice my German, Before that, I am drinking my coffee. For that, we need our third word, davor, the adverb.
This word, as well as zuvor and vorher, all connect two individual sentences. Zum Beispiel, ich werde mein Deutsch üben, aber davor trinke ich einen Kaffee. So I will practice my German, but before that, I will drink my coffee or drink a coffee. Another sentence would be Martin geht gleich zum Fußballtraining. Davor is der noch schnell eine Banane.
So Martin is just about to go to the football training. Before that, he quickly eats a banana. Two sentences, both having the verb in the second position, but the davor tells us which of those is happening first and it does that by relating back to the first one. Earlier, I also mentioned zuvor, which is used in a more formal, a more work context. I can give you an example here as well.
Ich habe gleich ein Meeting mit dem Chef, aber zuvor muss ich noch diese E-Mail abschicken. Okay, so more, same meaning, same use as davor, but a bit more formal. The second option that I mentioned was forehere. And that refers less to a specific event and is often translated in English as previously. Again, example sentence here.
Vorher hatte er keinen Hunger, aber jetzt isst er die ganze Pizza allein. So previously or earlier, he wasn't hungry, but now he's eating the whole pizza by himself. Has definitely happened. Okay, jetzt wisst ihr also Bescheid. We had for, before and davor and they all mean before in English. Which one you use depends on how you say something and not what you say.
So I hope that all made sense to you and you now feel a bit more confident to choose the right German before. If you want to practice this, then just think about what you do during the day and then try to order those events chronologically in your head with the help of for, before and therefore.
If you also want to see what happens after or during and not just before, then I have good news for you because that is exactly what we are covering in our next YouTube video. So if you don't want to miss it, then just head over to our channel. And while you're there, it would also be nice if you support us with a like and a subscribe. Wie immer, vielen Dank fürs Zuhören und Mitmachen.
Und ich wünsche dir noch eine wunderschöne Woche. Happy Coffee Breaking!
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