Can somebody explain the different situations in which bevor and zuvor should be used to say before?
In English “before” can be a conjuction, a preposition and an adverb (examples below)
The main difference is that bevor is a conjunction, not an adverb or preposition. That means that you can use “bevor” in front of clauses such as in “Before you came, this place was a mess” “Bevor du gekommen bist, …” But not in, e. g., “Before this pandemic I lived comfortably” (preposition).
As a preposition you would use “vor” “Vor dieser Pandemie, lebte ich bequem .”
An example of “before” as an adverb would be “We were happy before”. You can’t use “bevor” in this case either. Examples of adverbs in German include "vorher, “davor” and “zuvor”.
In the above example the most natural translation (IMO) would be “Vorher waren wir glücklich” and, in general, I would say that “vorher” is the most usual adverb of the bunch (in this context), but you can also use “zuvor” and “davor”. You can’t use any of them as a preposition or a conjunction.
The differences between the three adverbs are harder to pin down. They are interchangeable most of the time but there are some subtleties involved.
Here is a good explanation:
And this video offers further examples: How to use vorher, davor und zuvor in German? - YouTube
Ahora entiendo - Muchas gracias!
Ftornay’s explanation is good if you like to think in terms of grammar. However, if you like a more practical approach, there’s the following pattern:
Bevor comes always before an action (conjugated verb, never a noun!) and this action is always related to another action. Both actions go always into one sentence, each action goes into its own subordinate clause, their order depends on the action you wish to stress on. The stress is on the first subordinate sentence. (The structure is actually very similar to English conditional clauses.)
Bevor du dich aufregst, lass mich doch erst mal erklären!
Lass mich doch erst mal erklären, bevor du dich aufregst!
Bevor ich zu dir kommen kann, muss ich erst noch einkaufen gehen.
Ich muss erst noch einkaufen gehen, bevor ich zu dir kommen kann.
Ich gehe jeden Morgen mit meinem Hund spazieren, bevor ich zur Arbeit fahre.
Bevor ich zur Arbeit fahre, gehe ich jeden Morgen mit meinem Hund spazieren.
(In all these sentences bevor can be interchangeably used with ehe.)
Zuvor always gets its own sentence and refers to something that was mentioned in the sentence before. It also always requires a conjugated verb.
Ich lebe seit zwei Jahren in Berlin.
Zuvor habe ich in London gelebt. / Ich habe zuvor in London gelebt.
Seit kurzem arbeite ich fĂĽr einen Automobilzulieferer.
Zuvor war ich bei einem Maschinenbauer beschäftigt. / Ich war zuvor bei einem Maschinenbauer beschäftigt.
Ich werde mir heute einen neuen Computer kaufen.
Zuvor habe ich mich lange damit beschäftigt, welches Modell am besten für meine Zwecke taugt. / Ich habe mich zuvor lange damit beschäftigt,…
Never before = nie/niemals zuvor
Ever before = je/jemals zuvor
These are kind of fixed terms.
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