Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look at how to talk about different points in time in German. We’ve looked previously at how to tell the time – see this tag for lots of posts on that subject! – but what if you want to talk about something that happened yesterday, last week, or one hour ago? How about something that you anticipate will happen next week, in three days, or one hour from now? This post will teach you some words and phrases for just that!

Photo by STIL on Unsplash

Points in time in German: The basics

First, let’s refresh our memories with some basics:

Today: heute

Tomorrow: morgen

Yesterday: gestern

Now: jetzt

Some more, efficient German words!

We know that German has a unique ability to fit into single words concepts that take whole phrases to explain in English. When it comes to describing certain points in time, there are a few German words that do this job well:

Übermorgen – The day after tomorrow (literally ‘over-tomorrow’)

Überübermorgen – The day after the day after tomorrow… ie. in 3 days’ time (in drei Tagen)

Vorgestern – The day before yesterday (literally ‘before yesterday’)

Vorvorgestern – The day before the day before yesterday… ie. 3 days ago (vor drei Tagen)

Next year, last week, one hour ago!

Now, here are some more phrases to express specific dates or points in time in German:

• This week: diese Woche
• Next week: nächste Woche
• Last week: letzte Woche
• The week after next: übernächste Woche
• The week before last: vorletzte Woche
• Next Tuesday: nächsten Dienstag
• Last Tuesday: letzten Dienstag
• In a week’s time: in einer Woche
• A week ago: vor einer Woche
• In one hour: in einer Stunde
• One hour ago: vor einer Stunde
• A few hours ago: vor ein Paar Stunden
• In the next few days: in den nächsten Paar Tagen
• A few seconds ago: vor ein Paar Sekunden

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

I hope this has been helpful to you. To finish, here are some example sentences using words and phrases from this list, so you can see how they are used in context:

Das war erst vor ein Paar Sekunden
That was just a few seconds ago

Was hast du letzte Woche gemacht?
What did you do last week?

Wir sehen uns dann übermorgen!
We’ll see each other the day after tomorrow, then!

Was kommt nächsten Dienstag im Fernsehen?
What’s on TV next Tuesday?

Gestern hat es stark geregnet.
It rained heavily yesterday.

Diese Woche habe ich leider keine Zeit.
I don’t have time this week, sadly.

Heute ist ein sehr guter Tag.
Today is a very good day.