Hello everyone,
And welcome to your German word of the day. And today, I have an absolute must-have for you, because we’ll take a look at
The Meaning of ‘vorhin’
vorhin is super common in daily life, and yet, many learners kind of sleep on this one!
I have talked about it already in my lecture series on talking about time in German, because that’s what vorhin is about. But it’s kind of buried in there and I have decided to give it its time in the spotlight so to speak.
If you want to check out the time series, I’ll leave a link below, but today, we’ll focus on vorhin. We’ll learn what vorhin means, why it means that and how to use it like an absolute boss. So if you’re ready, let’s jump right in.
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The Core Meaning of ‘vorhin’
vorhin is what in grammar jargon is called an Adverb of Time and what that basically means is that vorhin can be a complete answer to the question “When?” by itself
A nice example for such a time adverb would be soon.
- “When will you clean your basement.”
“Soon.”
“That’s not an answer.”
The person, let’s call her mom, has a point that it’s a very imprecise answer, but on a technical and grammatical level, it definitely is.
Vorhin is a word just like that and arguably, it’s a lot more precise than soon because vorhin essentially means
earlier today
Why does it mean that? Like… what does it have to do with hin? Well, imagine you’re hiking and it’s getting dark and your friend tells you don’t worry, there’s a fireplace ahead soon while pointing to the next hill. Back a few hundred years, vorhin would be used in a such a situation and all we need to do to get the meaning it has now is to “turn around”. So instead of looking ahead, we’re look back to what was before. Like you’re turning around and pointing to the day so far and you’re like “over there”.
That’s kind of the logic behind the meaning, but honestly, if you feel like “Hmm, I don’t really follow.” then that’s fine. Germans are absolutely not aware of any of this, vorhin is really just a unit to us. So it’s not a “constructed word” like dahin.
Anyway, so yeah vorhin is perfect if you want to refer to points in time that are an hour ago or five hours ago and where it doesn’t really matter when exactly it was.
Time for examples.
- Sorry, dass ich vorhin nicht rangegangen bin.
- Sorry that I didn’t pick up the phone earlier.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Thomas hat vorhin angerufen.
- Thomas called earlier/a while ago.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich war vorhin beim Fitness.
- I was at fitness earlier.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Note that it’s NOT about earlier in a sense of comparison.
- Today, I got up earlier than yesterday.
Here, vorhin would make NO sense, because we’re comparing.
vorhin really is this casual vague “earlier today”. Maybe we can think of it as the “older” brother of just.
- I just saw a unicorn.
This can be like a minute ago or half an hour. The point is that the excitement is still very much fresh. You still feel like you’re in the same “time zone”, so to speak. For this you’d use eben or gerade for that in German.
- Ich habe gerade ein Einhorn gesehen.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
The same sentence with vorhin would sound like you’ve already “moved on” in a sense.
- Ich habe vorhin ein Einhorn gesehen.
- I saw a unicorn earlier.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
I don’t mean “moved on” in a sense that it’s not relevant anymore. I just mean that you’ve moved to a new “time slot” on that day. Like a new chapter in the book of that day.
So yeah, that’s the basic meaning and I’d really recommend you start to try and use the word because it just sounds super duper authentic, and there isn’t really much that can go wrong.
That said, there is a bit of a vibe difference between vorhin and earlier though. Nothing to obsess over or get hung up on, but it’s worth mentioning for sure.
The vibe of ‘vorhin’
vorhin and earlier (today) are both quite “vague” when it comes to the precise time, but vorhin does have a bit of a focused vibe. So it feels like it’s referring to one particular moment, rather than a stretch.
- I was super tired earlier today.
This is totally fine and can refer to the entire first half of the day or just some undefined section of it.
- Ich war vorhin super müde.
This sounds a bit more like there is a particular point in time (or section) you’re referring to.
Like… imagine your coworker asks you why ignored them when you two happened to be on the same bus and you want to basically say that you were very tired “at that time”. It’s not super strict, but the vibe is definitely there.
Anyway, let’s look at some more examples.
- Ich war vorhin kurz im Büro.
- I was at the office for a short time earlier.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Es hat vorhin kurz geregnet, aber sonst war das Wetter schön.
- It rained for a short while earlier/not so long ago, but other than that, the weather was nice.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Vorhin, als wir los sind, war es noch nicht so kalt wie jetzt.
- It wasn’t as cold earlier when we left as it is now.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
These are very typical uses of vorhin and maybe you can “feel” this subtle pointy-ness that it has.
But like I said… it’s nothing to obsess over. If you don’t feel it right now, ignore it and just start using vorhin. It’s too nice a word to not use just because you’re worried about getting some nuance wrong.
All right.
So that’s pretty much it I’d say.
Well, maybe one more thing: there is the phrase im Vorhinein especially in the Alpine region. And this has NOTHING to do with vorhin and the past.
Instead what it means is in advance and it’s pronounced vor-hinein. So not vorhin-ein.
It’s not super common and you’re way more likely to see im Nachhinein, which means in retrospect or after the fact. The more common choice for in advance is im Voraus, so that’s the one I’d recommend learning.
But yeah, I wanted to mention im Vorhinein so you don’t get confused if you do see it.
Cool.
So that’s it for today. This was our look at the meaning and use of vorhin, and I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: start using it. It’s one of those words that can make you sound authentic without sounding try-hard.
If you want to learn more time words like this, do check out my lessons on them in the time series.
There, we talk about eben, gerade, neulich and many more so if you feel shaky about these types of words, then you’ll learn a lot there. I’ll put the link below.
As always, if you want to recap the key points and learn a bit more, you can take the little quiz I have prepared.
And of course if you have any questions or suggestions just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it, and see you next time.
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Further reading:
This is a lesson in the time series and we cover ALL the useful adverbs of time including eben, gerade and neulich.
A dedicated article about the word “her”.
A dedicated article about the meaning and use of “hin”. Absolute must-have if you haven’t read it yet.
My name is Lucia and I am one of the students that got the chance to study German for free, thanks to the kindness of Emmanuel and everyone who helped make this possible. Thanks to all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for this opportunity. I can only hope life brings happiness and health to everyone!
Willkommen :)
I am very grateful to Emanuel for giving me a wonderful opportunity to learn German for free on this website, freeing me from the burden of not being able to study due to poverty.
I’d really say learners ought to internalize “vorhin” as THE go-to gloss for “earlier,” at least for conversation. “Früher” just always gets you into trouble – I learned my German mainly in Berlin, but I think the same applies at least in Munich: it’s either a comparative (“früher als” = “earlier than”) or as an adverb it means “back in the day.”
Really, at least for American speakers, you wouldn’t generally use “earlier” by itself as an adverb to mean anything farther back than the same day you’re saying it, I think. If you’re speaking about “früher” in the German sense, I think you’d either use a “used to” construction or say “earlier in the year/decade/century” or something like that to indicate the time frame. (For in-between times, “earlier this week/month” etc.)
Ah, I wasn’t aware that “earlier” was limited to the day too.
I don’t think it’s a rule, exactly, and probably less strict than “vorhin” in any case. But as I tried to think about how I’d use it in conversation, I realized that it just always sounds to me like “earlier today” unless you modify it.
To me, the biggest difference is that it doesn’t have that “point in time/event” vibe that “vorhin” does.
– I had a sandwich earlier.
– I was doing some sightseeing earlier.
Both work fine.
I agree with you, “earlier” in English gives same day vibes
How interchangeable are vorhin and vorher? I am not sure if I have heard vorhin often here in Switzerland.
“vorher” means something different: “before that”.
Not sure about Switzerland though. It’s possible they use them differently or not at all.
Thank you!! I’ll learn well!! – Danielle/Juju
Willkommen!!
I’m wondering how vorhin compares to früher. Is früher less “pointy” (i.e. less about a specific moment in time)? I guess früher is also ambiguous about how long ago you are talking about, whereas vorhin is “earlier today”.
Can “vorhin” ever mean “earlier this week”?
Thanks for the great article!
“früher” either means “earlier” in a comparison, or it means “back in the day”. It does NOT means “recently” or “earlier today”. That’s a common mistake
“vorhin” is limited to the day, in a “human” sense, so if it’s 3am but you haven’t slept yet, that’s still the same day even though technically, it’s a new one already.
Exactly!
It’s really dependent on register or contextual usage.
Perhaps individual taste prevails here, but in the sentence “Leider war ich vorhin nicht im Buero.”, personally, I might as easily and naturally have said/jotted down “Leider war ich frueher nicht im Buero.”
To me, this sounds like “back a year or two ago”. We do not use “früher” that way in Berlin and I’m not sure how widespread this is. Learners constantly use früher wrong, so yeah.
Probably sloppy, at best, colloquial, usage on my part…even though I’m from and was brought up in Westphalia
Ultra fantastic new Wörtchen to learn for today! I’ll make sure to use it next time.
I wasn’t aware of vorhin , but I am somewhere in B1 land.
This was interesting and fun.
Thanks,
Mike
Vorhin can often be used in speech almost like “frueher”, literally, “earlier”.
I would disagree with that.
Could you give me an example? Maybe there’s a regional difference.
Warst du schon frueher da? = Were you there before/earlier?
Hi Emanuel, you often use the phrase “side sentence” in your articles but the actual English equivalent of Nebensatz is “dependent clause.” A Hauptsatz is similarly an “independent clause.” The terms are certainly more clunky but standard in English grammar texts. Just would make your articles more clear for people who don’t know the German grammar terms :)
I’m really on the fence about this one. I know the term dependent clause or subordinate clause, but my hunch is that 90% of learners do not know what that really means or how to identify one in English.
So I’m usually calling them side sentences because they’re “on the side” of a main sentence. It’s not meant as a direct translation of “Nebensatz”.
I want to keep the articles as jargon free as possible. Some grammar terms are so well established that I do use them (like “verb” for example), but the more grammar terms there are, the more do people zone out or feel like the material is not for them.
Side sentence is not ideal either, but at least people feel intuitively okay with the word sentence. Not so much with the word “clause”.
On some occasions I’ve even met fellow native speakers who will confuse “vorhin” with “vorHER”!
This must be regional then. I cannot imagine anyone mixing them up, since they mean very different things where I am from.
Your second question has the wrong answer. I answered it right, and then it said I was wrong and proceeded to explain why I was right.
Fixed, I forgot to switch the default marking. Sorry for messing with your score like that :)
Hallo,
Let’s get rid of some typos:
“on a technical and grammatical level, the it definitely is” (on a technical and grammatical level, it definitely is)
“fireplace ahead soon while point to the next hill” (fireplace ahead soon while pointing to the next hill)
“does have bit of a focused vibe” (does have a bit of a focused vibe”
“your coworker asks you ignored them” (your coworker asks why you ignored them)
“see you next tim.
test” (see you next time.)
And I got question 2 marked incorrect even though my answer was right and tied in with the explanation…
Thanks for yet another very informative article, I don’t think I use vorhin that much, so I’ll start doing it ;)
Bis bald!
Thanks and sorry for the question marking. I forgot to change the default.
And that “test”… damnit. That actually comes from the quiz, because I’m working on a quiz archive right now. I wasn’t aware this showed up with every quiz now. Annoying, but I’ll do that tomorrow.
“vorhin” is kind of not really needed unless you talk to native speakers about everyday stuff of the day. You don’t really need it outside of actual interactions, but if you do have some speaking practice then yeah, try to drop it in.