Hallo everyone,
and welcome back to our mini course on Talking about Time in German.
Today, we’ll continue what we started last time – talking all about those vague words that indicate a point in time without being too specific.
Or in grammar jargon:
German Adverbs of time
Last time, we talk about German time adverbs that refer to the future, so we learned bald, gleich, demnächst, später and more, so if you want to check that out, you can find link the navigation above.
And today, we’ll look in the other direction anda learn the most important time words that refer to the past.
So let’s jump right into it.
We’ll start with the words that you need when you want to refer to the same day.
And the first pair is eben and gerade, which refer to what we could call the immediate past.
eben and gerade – Immediate Past
Both eben and gerade have like a dozen meanings and we’ve talked about them in painful detail in a separate article (link below), but all that matters today, is that we can use them to refer to the immediate past – the past that’s just before “now”.
I’d say the range is from a second to no more than an hour ago.
So suitable translations could be just or just now or maybe also earlier.
- Marie hat gerade/eben angerufen.
- Marie just called.
- Ich war bis eben in der Bücherei und konnte deshalb nicht ans Telefon gehen.
- I was at the library until just now / some minutes ago, therefor I wasn’t able to answer the phone.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now the big question many of you are wondering about is of course if there is any difference between eben and gerade?
And the answer is:
Maybe a little!
This answer won the Fifa Best Answer Award in 2025, btw.
Seriously though, I feel like overall I use gerade more often, but in some sentences, like in the second example, eben sounds better. No deeper logic or reason. It’s just how I feel, and other German speakers might feel different. So basically, you can do as you feel, as well.
And if you can’t make a decision, well, no problem. Just use them both together.
Yes, native speakers do that and oh, on a side note, gerade is very often contracted to grade or grad’ and gerade eben to grad’ ehm so you’re likely to hear that in spoken German.
- Hey John, was für ein Zufall, ich wollte dich gerade eben anrufen.
- Hey John, what a coincidence, I was just about to call you.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich hatte eben gerade das Bad gewischt, als die Waschmaschine kaputt ging.
- I was just done sweeping the bathroom when the washing machine broke down.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Either one of the examples would work with just eben or gerade but I think using both in combination just puts a little emphasis on the fact that it really JUST happened. But don’t worry about that too much. If you want to refer to the close past you can use gerade or eben or both.
Cool.
Next up, we have the time frame of about an hour ago up to three or four hours in the past.
And here we get to a REALLY common mistake.
Früher and Vorhin – Earlier Today
In English, one of the most common words to refer to that time frame is earlier.
I was very tired earlier, but now it’s ok.
And technically, the direct counterpart of earlier is früher BUT as a vague reference to a point in time, they two ARE NOT THE SAME.
To translate the English example, we need the word vorhin.
- Vorhin war ich sehr müde, aber jetzt ist es ok.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Using früher here is something many learners do, but it’s super weird. We’ll find out why later.
Vorhin is used A LOT but oddly lots of learning materials like textbooks forget about it.
You definitely need it, though.
- “Hast du was gegessen?”
“Ja vorhin, aber ich habe trotzdem Hunger.” - “Have you eaten something?”
“Yes earlier, I feel hungry though.” - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, what’s important to realize about vorhin is that it ALWAYS uses the moment you speak as a reference point.
So it can not be used for accounts of past events like…
Maria was very happy when she met Thomas because, earlier (that day), she had seen a unicorn.
Here, the speaker talks about stuff that happened in the past, and within that past one thing happened before the other.
Using vorhin here wouldn’t work because vorhin is always relative to the moment of speaking. So people would understand that Maria had seen the unicorn earlier today, instead of earlier that day. Now you might be like “Oh, so is THAT where we need früher? For earlier that day.”
But the answer is nope. We’ll get to früher later.
In the unicorn example, you would either use a pointer-word like voher or am Vormittag or people would simply not say anything like earlier and instead just let the context and verb time clarify the order of things. To save you some scrolling here is the English sentence again.
- Maria war gut gelaunt, als sie sich mit Thomas traf, denn sie hatte (vorher/ am morgen) ein Einhorn gesehen.
- Maria was happy when she met Thomas because earlier she had seen a unicorn.
Cool.
So, with the same day, you have eben and gerade for the immediate past and vorhin for an unspecified point earlier in the day.
Now let’s go back a step further.
Words for The Recent Past
What I mean by recent past is the period from a few days to a couple of weeks ago – the period that you’d refer to with phrases like not so long ago, recently or the other day in English.
And two of the most common options for that period are letztens and neulich. And no, neulich doesn’t mean newly :).
- Ich war neulich im Theater.
- I was in the theater the other day.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Letztens habe ich im Park eine alte Freundin getroffen.
- I met an old friend in the park the other day.
(Make sure that you have the s there at letztens, otherwise it’s not understandable.)
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
There are actually quite a few alternatives like vor Kurzem or vor einer Weile, but there’s no real difference in meaning, so you can just pick one or two and stick with those.
There is one fairly important difference between German and English here, though. You see, in these examples we’re referring to a singular point in time in the recent past.
However, there’s also the option to refer to a time span in the recent past or to the recent past as a whole.
- There haven’t been any good movies recently.
And the German words we just learned would NOT work here.
- Neulich gab es keine guten Filme…. wrong
This example sounds like “There’s haven’t been any good movies the other day” and the reason is that neulich as well as the others refer to ONE instance.
If we want to refer to the recent past in terms of a time span, the best way to do that is in letzter Zeit.
- Ich war in letzter Zeit oft joggen.
- I was running often recently.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas, äh… hast du dich in letzter Zeit mal geduscht?
- Thomas.. uhm.. have you taken a shower recently?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Yeah, it’s really bad with Thomas, by the way. He’s so smelly. I mean, sure, working from home and single again isn’t nice but this stench, my god. He really needs to step up and step into the shower soon
Anyway… where was I… oh yeah, so, this concept of making a distinction between a point in time and a span is actually fairly important in German, and we’ll get back to it later in this series.
So you even if you feel like you didn’t really get it now, you will get it then.
But now let’s hop on the time machine one last time and travel way back, to the boomer days and beyond.
Words for the Remote Past
And here, finally, we meet früher.
Yep, früher, as a time indication, does NOT mean earlier. It refers to that time when everything was better, the public transportation was cheaper, people were more polite, politicians still had ideals, the beer tasted better and was more nutritious, the air was cleaner and more nutritious, apples were still picked by hand from trees alongside the road, and were more nutritious, there were no ads on Youtube and an iPhone cost $12.
This is what früher refers to… the good ol’ days.
- Früher war alles besser.
- Back in the day, everything was better.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now my dictionary suggests formerly as a translation but I don’t think the two have much in common. In my opinion früher is more like in times past, in the olden days or just several years ago (in another period of my life).
Oh and I guess we should note that früher refers to a period of time and it usually doesn’t sound idiomatic for single events.
- Früher habe ich einen Bär gesehen… not really
- In days past I saw a bear.
If you want to use früher for single events, you need to add one of those infamous everywhere-words German has: mal.
- Früher habe ich mal einen Bär gesehen.
- In times past I saw a bear once.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This works fine and I think it is how people would phrase something like that in spoken but there is actually another word for the remote past which would do the job: einst.
- Ich habe einst einen Bär gesehen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
This expresses that the event has been years ago as well as the fact that it happened once.
But einst has collected a little dust because it’s not used much ( you can see the usage of “einst” in this n-gram). It would sound like you’re stage acting.
Oh and by the way, einst can refer to the future as well. It’s even more rare than for the past, but it can happen. So yeah, if you want to say something like back in the day, stick with früher or früher mal respectively.
And I think that’s it!!
This concludes the fourth part of our time mini series. I’ll go have a shower now, while you get sweaty doing our nice little quiz to check how much you remember.
It’s tough, so don’t fret if you don’t get all correct. But make sure, if you make a mistake that you know WHY you made the mistake. That’s when you learn.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestion about the article or the quiz, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Hi
So for an event that happened years ago-
Frueher mal can be used, but does it still have the vibe of “the good old days”, or is that lost with the use of “mal”?
If It still has that vibe, and the word “Einst” is old fashioned, how would I refer to some event that happened a long time ago, but not in that wistful golden age.
Just say “about 20 yr ago”?
Thanks
Jeff
Ah, frueher is okay for something like that, but I think if you have the time frame concrete like that, I’d go for “vor 20 Jahren”. I think I mainly use frueher if I somehow want to contrast “back in the day” vs “now”.
Thanks
This has been very helpful. One point I question: “a while back” to my native English ear sounds like “some time ago” or definitely not recently. You have matched it with “neulich” or “not so long ago.” Did I miss this in the discussion? Anyway, I am very grateful for this site for learning real, daily German.
Great point, I have changed that to “the other day”.
“neulich” does sound recent so based on what you said, it’s indeed not a good match for “a while back”.
This is an amazing piece of work, Emanuel. I cannot imagine the effort you put into this. I have two questions. In 4.2, when you’re discussing combining eben and gerade, does the order matter? I saw eben gerade in one example, and gerade eben in the other. My second involves your use of a “pointer word”; I’m having trouble with that one. Could you clarify? Thanks so much.
There’s no difference between “eben gerade” and “gerade eben” as far as meaning is concerned. To me, “gerade eben” maybe sounds a bit more “pointy” but that might just be my personal perception.
Pointer word:
By “pointer word” I mean a word that relates to some sort of reference point.
“vorhin” means “earlier today” and doesn’t need a second point in time to relate to.
“vorher” means “before THAT” so it does need a second point in time.
Hope that helps :)
Perfect! thanks!
Ich war in letzter Zeit oft joggen.
I was running often recently.
Is “war” here the main or the helper verb?
Good question!
I would call it “main”, but I’m not sure if there is linguistic consensus.
You can read my take on these structures here:
https://yourdailygerman.com/einkaufen-gehen-why-no-zu/
In a nutshell, I (and others) interpret these as “indications of location mixed with activity”. “joggen” answers to “where, doing what”? so with that logic, “war” is the main verb.
I will check it out, vielen Dank.
Huge thanks for this article. Often I see these words translated as only “earlier” or “later” but this is rather confusing.
You mentioned in your dictionary that früher can mean earlier when used in comparisons. But is the context enough to use this früher or do we need to be more strict. Like:
Speaker A – Ich bin um 8 Uhr in die Schule gegangen.
Speaker B – Ich bin dorthin früher gegangen.
Would this be enough to imply that speaker B went earlier to school than speaker A (earlier than 8)? Is this usage correct? Can anything else than that be undestood?
Speaker B:
– Ich bin früher hingegangen.
I think it would be understood, but it’s a bit shaky. If speaker B is a 70 year old person, maybe the other meaning is more sensible.
– Gestern bin ich um 8 gegangen, heute gehe ich früher.
This is an example where it’s 100% clear.
At the ‘Neulich’ point, there was an example ‘Neulich gab es keine guten Filme.’ I don’t understand why it’s ‘guten Filme’ and not ‘gute Filme’, because ‘es gibt’ requires accusative and after kein the adjective should act in the indefinite form, right? Or is there something I’m missing?
It’s plural, that’s why. Plural adjectives virtually always have “-en” if there’s an article of any kind.
I have made, recently, so many of these mistakes. Teaching “früher” as “earlier” should be a crime.
Related to “Anyway, this concept of making a distinction between a point in time and a span is actually fairly important in German”, I find this a bit funny because Germans have so much trouble with the reverse in English. Most Germans translate always translate “bis” as until, but it often means “by”, and the difference is whether the bis refers to a duration or a point in time.
Well, it can mean “earlier” but only in an actual comparison :).
As for “until” and “by”, I think we need to clear up a misunderstanding. To me perception (which might be wrong), both words connect a point in time.
– by Monday, until Monday
And you can’t connect a duration.
– by three week, until three weeks
The difference here is what type of action they’re referring to, with “until” referring to an ongoing thing and “by ” being just a singular moment.
Did I get that right?
It’s a similar type of mistake, but in German there’s more focus on the “type of time measure” that you connect and not on the action.
Ah, yes I see what you mean and think you’re right. The difference between by and until is the meaning, but grammatically they work the same (and with with named points in time). While the difference between prepositions working with a duration or fixed point is generally a grammar thing and the different words might mean the same thing is the grammar allowed them to be used.
This article is so, so helpful.
btw, in the quiz, the question, “Which words refer to a past which is between 4 days and a couple of weeks ago – like “not so long ago”, “recently” or “the other day”?” expects kürzlich as one of the answers.
However, kürzlich isn’t mentioned in the article. Are you trying to mess with us? ;)
Hi dear Emanuel.
Great lesson, thank you very much.
Dieses Gebäude war früher mal ein Krankenhaus.
Can I omit mal here? I think it’s refering to a time span and not a point.
Yeah, you can take it out. With “mal” it sounds more casual. A bit like “at some point” would sound in English in this sentence.
That’s great content, thank you. I’m still left wonderin about “damals” and hoe it differs from all others. Thank you!!
“damals” is like “back in the day” or “back then”, so it refers to a proper past. Like a decade+. Some people may also use it for a year ago, but I think then it’s always about some period that has clearly ended. Like… someone who moved from Germany to the States for good a year ago might accidentally use “damals” when talking about living in Germany.
in don’t understand the logic behind vorher and vorhin .
Vor her = before to here and vor hin before to there I am a bit loooost
There’s no inherent logic that would explain why “vorhin” and “vorher” mean what they mean and why it’s not the other way around.
If the meanings were switched, it would make just as much (or little) sense.
So yeah… you’ll just have to learn these two.
vorhin – earlier (a couple of hours)
vorher – before that
Hello!
“kürzlich” is the word I learned for “recently”. It’s listed in the vocabulary at the top of this article but I can’t see it in the body of the article. You say when discussing words for recently:
“There are actually quite a few alternatives like vor Kurzem or vor einer Weile…”
I guess Kürzlich is another one of those alternatives? Or does it mean something totally different?
Danke!
It definitely only works for a single point in time, not a span.
So you cannot say “kürzlich” for something like
“in letzter Zeit” is the proper choice here.
Also, “kürzlich” sounds a bit “scripted” and you don’t hear it much in daily life. I don’t think I ever use it, actually.
Ah, okay, thanks! I’ll learn the examples you give in the article then.
What do you mean by scripted? Like, formal? Or stiff? Or old fashioned/out of fashion?
It’s a word you’d maybe use in a script or text, possibly because you have a thesaurus nearby :).
It usually doesn’t come to mind in daily flow of conversation and you have to kind of “chose” to use it.
Not really formal, just not the first (or second) choice.
Huh, interesting! Thanks for the replies :)
Hi, how about neuerdings? Is it in use?
Actually yeah. It’s not something you hear every day, but it’s definitely part of some people’s active vocabulary. To me, I’d use it in the sense of “of late, in recent days”
so more or less like “in der letzten Zeit”?
Yup. Maybe there’s a slight vibe of “news” or “new habit” in there. That’s at least how I would use it.
– “Maria macht neuerdings Yoga.”
“Ohhhh, echt?”
Vielen Dank!
Hey Chatgpt explained it that, “neuerdings” prefers to a permanent change (or at least long-term) , like “Neuerdings verwendet die Firma nur recycelbare Verpackungen.” While “in der letzten Zeit” prefers to temporary changes like “In letzter Zeit regnet es ungewöhnlich oft.” or “In letzter Zeit habe ich weniger Zeit zum Lesen.”
I don’t know if Chatgpt is correct. Maybe you can tell?
Pretty good overall. “neuerdings” sounds a bit too casual for the exact context ChatGPT gave, but it’s true that “neuerdings” sounds like it’ll stay that way (at least for a while), while “in letzter Zeit” sounds more temporary.
“Formerly” is, I would say, a combination of “in times past” with “but it isn’t now”. e.g. “This was formerly the fire station” (but now, as you can see, it is a pub). The “in times past” has that vibe to an extent anyway, but “formerly” has perhaps a more definite sense of “changed from times past” about it. But I can see why a dictionary might bracket them.
How would you say something like “I read that book last summer”?
“Ich habe das Buch letzten Sommer gelesen.”
Let me know if you have questions about that :)
How do cases work with “letzten Sommer”? It would be dativ case if you were saying ich habe etwas im Sommer gemacht right? What is it here/how do you know what to do?
You’re right, as soon as you use a definite article, you need Dative case. Without the article, you use Accusative. But there’s no logic whatsoever. Think of it as a fixed expression (nächsten, letzten, diesen something)
Thanks!
just an FYI–you wrote “voher” instead of “vorher”
Ops… it … uhm… was a test. You passed :)
Very nice!
Hi, Emanuel! I have a question. Sometimes in English I’ll say, “I just did that two weeks ago.” So, the ‘just’ here has the ‘gerade/eben’ feel to it as from my perspective it seems like it is pretty recent whatever I did. But, it also doesn’t have the ‘gerade/eben’ feel, since it didn’t juuuust happen – within the last ten minutes. Would I use gerade/eben here anyway, and let the ‘vor zwei Wochen’ context overrule the ‘within ten minutes’ of gerade?
Very good question! “eben” doesn’t work at all to my ears. There would really be confusion as to when it happened (just now or two weeks ago).
When you use “gerade” alone, the “gerade” would lean toward the “exactly”-gerade, but I can’t capture it in a translation. It’s not too idiomatic in my opinion.
What does work though is the combination “gerade erst”.
“erst” adds it’s notion of “man, not much yet” and “gerade” adds teh notion of time and “recentness” and the combination fits the bill.
Ich habe Deutsch seit zwei Jahre gelernt, und ich finde dass, deine Website die interessanteste und aufschlussreichste Website ist, die ich gelesen habe. Vielen dank!
Danke für das liebe Feedback :)
Eine kleine Korrektur… oder Frage:
Lernst du immer noch Deutsch? Wenn ja, dann musst du sagen:
– Ich lerne seit 2 Jahren Deutsch.
Wenn du die “spoken past” verwendest, dann sagst du, dass du nicht mehr lernst. Das ist ein klassischer Fehler von Englischmuttersprachlern. Die beiden Zeiten “have learned” und “habe gelernt” sehen zwar gleich aus, sind aber nicht wirklich gleich :)
Ich habe auch “gerade” gesehen, wenn der Satz nicht in der Vergangenheit ist…
Bedeutet das denn in diesem Fall, dass es ja in der Vergangenheit ist?
zum Beispiel auf Facebook: “Was machst du gerade?”
Ja, richtig, das sagt man auch oft.
– ich verbe gerade
heißt soviel wie
– I’m verbing right now
Also, “gerade” reicht quasi von “jetzt” bis ein bisschen in die Vergangenheit. Je nach Kontext.
– Ich esse gerade.
– I’m eating right now.
– Ich habe gerade gegessen.
– I just ate.
– Ich aß gerade, als du anriefst (real past)
– I was eating when you called.
Gerade ist ja scon ewig auf meiner To-Do-Liste, aber ich trau’ mich nicht… so viele Aspekte.
Keine Sorge,
Ich verstehe (und sicherlich verstehen wir alle), dass es ein wirklich schwieriges Wort zu erklären ist (und eben auch), trotzdem hilft das mir sehr!