Before or after?

Establishing an Order of Events in German

Often when communicating, we refer to a couple of different events that occur in sequence. And when we do this, we often want to to make it clear in what order they happened. Are you going to meet with friends before you have lunch, or after you’ve had lunch and been to the gym?

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

There are all sorts of ways of establishing an order of events in German. We’re going to look at three main ways, starting off with two prepositions vor and nach.

Prepositions

When communicating a sequence of events, prepositions can be handy if not maybe a little limited because they need to precede nouns only. But for a lot of situations they can be exactly what we need. The main ones we’ll use are vor and nach.

vor

This means before. But take care because it is not a conjunction. In English, before is both a preposition and a conjunction. A preposition precedes just a noun, while the conjunction introduces a whole clause. In German, we have separate (but related) words. We’ll consider the conjunction form of before below. Ok. So, we can’t use it in situations like this:

Before I went into the mountains, I bought a map. This is a conjunction

but we can use it in situations like this:

Before the hike I bought a map This is a preposition

Let’s see how this works in German.

Vor der Sitzung haben wir uns im Café getroffen Before the meeting, we met in the café.

It’s clear that there were two events: 1) A meeting in the café; and 2) a ‘meeting’

Vor der Wanderung gingen wir noch schnell einkaufen. Before the hike we quickly went shopping

nach

This is a preposition that means after. Again, we need to be a little careful because in English after is both a preposition and a conjunction. We can’t use nach like this:

After I bought some hiking boots, I went hiking. This is a conjunction

but we can use it in situations like this:

After the hike I had a long shower This is a preposition

So, let’s see how we use this in German:

Nach der Pizza haben wir ein Eis gegessen. After the pizza we had an ice-cream

Nach der Vorlesung ging ich in die Bibliothek After the lecture I went to the library

In each of these cases (with vor and nach) the event that follows the preposition is communicated by a noun: (eating) a pizza, (listening to) a lecture.

If we want to communicate an event that involves something more complex we will often want to use either a connector or a conjunction

Connectors

Here we’re talking about a bunch of handy words like these ones:

• dann then

• danach after that

• nachher afterwards

As you can see these all mean much the same thing and they get used in much the same way. They often start the sentence that describes the second event. These events can be in the past, present or future.

Two events in the Past

In this example, both events were in the past. We’re using the same tense for both events even though one thing happened after the other. And it wouldn’t really matter which of our three connectors we used here:

Ich habe gefrühstückt. Dann habe ich abgewaschen.

I had breakfast. Then I washed up. Here it sounds like I washed up directly after having breakfast.

Ich habe gefrühstückt. Danach habe ich abgewaschen.

I had breakfast. After that I washed up. Here again it sounds like I washed up after having breakfast.

Ich habe gefrühstückt. Nachher habe ich abgewaschen. Here again it sounds like I washed up after having breakfast, maybe not straightaway.

Bonus Tip: If we wanted to swap the order, we could use davor instead.

Ich habe abgewaschen. Davor habe ich gefrühstückt.

Two events in the Present or Future

Another common way to use these connectors is to refer to two sequenced events in the present or immediate future. This can often involve the communication of intentions. Again, we can use the same tense and convey the sequence by using one of our connectors:

As we saw above, we could easily use one of the other connectors to express more or less the same thing:

Ich frühstücke. Dann wasche ich ab

Ich frühstücke. Danach wasche ich ab.

Ich frühstücke. Nachher wasche ich ab.

These are all connectors and will generally start a new sentence, or follow a coordinating conjunction like and, oder and so on.

Ich frühstücke und dann wasche ich ab

As well as the three that we have mentioned, there are a number of others that work in much the same way: später (later); zuerst or zunächst (first); vorher (before, beforehand)

Ich frühstücke und später wasche ich ab

I have breakfast and later I wash up

Zuerst frühstücke ich und dann wasche ich ab

First I have breakfast and then I wash up

With vorher we mention what we did beforehand

Ich wasche ab. Vorher frühstücke ich

Ich wasche ab, aber vorher frühstücke ich

I wash up. Beforehand I have breakfast

Another common way to communicate a sequence of events is to use conjunctions like nachdem and bevor.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions work a bit different to connectors. With these particular conjunctions we need to understand the difference between main clauses (Hauptsätze) and subordinate clauses (Nebensätze). Both nachdem and bevor are what is called subordinating conjunctions because they introduce subordinate clauses where the verb will be at the end. Remember: In a main clause, the verb is in the second position, and following a subordinating conjunction, the conjugated verb will be at the end of the sentence.

bevor

Like vor this will be translated as before in English. However, bevor is a conjunction that introduces a whole sentence. If we return quickly to our example above we can see that the conjunction before introduces the whole sentence ‘I went into the mounatins’ (rather than just the noun the hike)

Before I went into the mountains, I bought a map. This is a conjunction

Again, we will not use it when the equivalent of before a preposition. Instead, we will use it when we want to mention the second event first (where this includes an action described by a verb) and then say what we did, or what happened before this. Easier shown than described. Let’s describe this sequence of events:

Bevor ich wandern gehe, gehe ich kurz einkaufen

Note that both of these are in the same tense (present tense) even though one event (shopping) takes place before the other (hiking). And this will also be the case if we are describing a sequence of past events:

Bevor wir wandern gegangen sind, sind wir einkaufen gegangen.

Both of our events are in the past tense (here in the perfect tense).

Note that the bevor clause is a subordinate clause and the other is a main clause.

If we want to say express the idea of after then we will use the conjunction nachdem.

nachdem

Like nach this will be translated as after in English. However, nachdem is a conjunction. It introduces a whole clause rather than just a noun:

After I went shopping, we went hiking

We went for a swim, after we arrived

The main difference between this conjunction and bevor is that we need to communicate the sequence of events by way of a change of tense. This was not necessary with bevor. There are two main ways of using nachdem:

• where the second event is in the present (and the first event was in the past)

• where both events are in the past

In each case we are relating information about two events. One event takes place after the completion of the other. Correct German requires that we signal this time difference by means of a change of tense. Generally, the nachdem-clause will be one tense earlier than the main clause:

• If at least one of the events is in the present, then the first event must be in the perfect tense.

• If both events are completed events in the past, then the first event will be in the pluperfect and the later event in the simple past

Here’s an overview of the tenses we’re meant to use.

Let’s look at a few more examples:

1. The main clause is in the present tense; the subordinate clause is in the perfect tense:

Ich gieße die Blumen, nachdem ich den Rasen gemäht habe I’ll water the flowers, after I have mowed the lawn.

Er isst die Schnitte, nachdem er schon ein großes Stück Kuchen gegessen hat He’s eating the slice, after he’s already eaten a big piece of cake

Sie gehen schwimmen, nachdem sie den ganzen Tag gearbeitet haben. They go swimming, after they have worked the whole day.

2. The main clause is in the simple past tense; the subordinate clause is in the pluperfect tense:

Ich goss die Blumen, nachdem ich den Rasen gemäht hatte I watered the flowers, after I had mown the lawn.

Er aß die Schnitte, nachdem er schon ein großes Stück Kuchen gegessen hatte He ate the slice, after he’d already eaten a big piece of cake

Sie gingen schwimmen, nachdem sie den ganzen Tag gearbeitet hatten. They went swimming, after they had worked the whole day.