The word "preposition" literally means "placed before" — and in English that's iron-clad: the preposition always precedes its noun. You can say "along the river," never "the river along." German is more flexible. A small but high-frequency set of words can — and sometimes must — sit after their noun. Strictly speaking these are postpositions (or, in gegenüber's case, an ambipositional word that goes either way). This is one of those features that has no English parallel at all, so English speakers either don't know it exists or reflexively front everything. This page covers the four you'll actually meet: gegenüber, entlang, nach (in the "according to" sense), and the postposed use of wegen and zuliebe.
gegenüber: "opposite," and it loves to follow
gegenüber ("opposite, across from, vis-à-vis") takes the dative. Its placement rule is what makes it worth a page:
- With a pronoun, it almost always follows: mir gegenüber, ihm gegenüber, uns gegenüber. Putting it first (gegenüber mir) is grammatical but sounds stiff or marked.
- With a noun, it can go either way: gegenüber dem Bahnhof OR dem Bahnhof gegenüber — both are correct and common, with the preposed version slightly more frequent in modern usage.
Er saß mir gegenüber und sagte kein Wort.
He sat opposite me and didn't say a word. — pronoun → gegenüber follows: mir gegenüber
Die Bäckerei ist direkt gegenüber dem Bahnhof.
The bakery is right opposite the station. — noun → preposed is fine: gegenüber dem Bahnhof
Dem Bahnhof gegenüber liegt ein kleines Café.
Opposite the station there's a small café. — noun → postposed is equally correct: dem Bahnhof gegenüber
There's a second, figurative meaning: gegenüber also expresses "toward / in relation to / in one's dealings with" someone, common in formal and journalistic writing (formal).
Sie ist ihren Kollegen gegenüber immer sehr fair.
She's always very fair toward her colleagues. — figurative 'toward', pronoun-like noun phrase → postposed
entlang: "along," and position changes the case
entlang ("along") is the cleanest postposition: when it follows its noun — which is the normal, idiomatic position — it takes the accusative.
Wir sind den ganzen Nachmittag den Fluss entlang spaziert.
We strolled along the river the whole afternoon. — postposed entlang → accusative: den Fluss entlang
Geh die Straße entlang bis zur Ampel.
Walk along the street up to the traffic light. — den/die ... entlang, accusative, postposed
What makes entlang a textbook case of "case shifts with position" is its behaviour when preposed. In the rarer preposed position it governs the dative (or sometimes genitive in formal register): entlang dem Fluss (dative) / entlang des Flusses (genitive, formal). So the same word takes different cases depending on whether it sits before or after the noun:
| Position | Case | Example | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| postposed (normal) | accusative | den Fluss entlang | neutral / everyday |
| preposed | dative | entlang dem Fluss | formal |
| preposed | genitive | entlang des Flusses | formal / written |
Entlang des Flusses wurden neue Radwege gebaut.
New cycle paths were built along the river. — preposed → genitive (formal, written register)
For everyday speech, internalise just one form: noun in the accusative, entlang after it — den Fluss entlang, die Mauer entlang, den Strand entlang. That's the version you'll both hear and want to produce.
nach as a postposition: "according to"
You know nach as a preposed dative preposition ("to, after"). But in the specific meaning "according to / judging by," it characteristically sits after its noun, especially in a cluster of fixed phrases. The most famous is meiner Meinung nach — "in my opinion" (literally "my opinion according-to").
Meiner Meinung nach ist das die beste Lösung.
In my opinion, that's the best solution. — fixed postposed phrase: meiner Meinung nach
Allem Anschein nach hat er die Stadt schon verlassen.
By all appearances, he's already left the city. — allem Anschein nach, postposed (formal)
Dem Gesetz nach ist das verboten.
According to the law, that's forbidden. — postposed nach = 'according to'
In this "according to" sense, nach is far more natural postposed. You can say nach meiner Meinung, but meiner Meinung nach is overwhelmingly the idiomatic form and worth memorising as a set phrase. Note that nach still takes the dative throughout (meiner Meinung, dem Gesetz) — only its position moves.
zuliebe and the postposed wegen
Two more worth recognising. zuliebe ("for the sake of") is always postposed and takes the dative:
Den Kindern zuliebe sind sie zusammengeblieben.
They stayed together for the children's sake. — zuliebe is always postposed: den Kindern zuliebe
And wegen ("because of"), normally preposed, can follow its noun in a slightly old-fashioned or set-phrase register (archaic-flavoured but still alive in fixed expressions like von Berufs wegen):
Der Form wegen hat er sich noch einmal entschuldigt.
For form's sake, he apologised once more. — postposed wegen (literary/set-phrase register)
Postposed wegen sounds literary or formulaic; in ordinary modern German you'll preposes it (wegen des Wetters). Recognise it; don't reach for it unless you're aiming for that register.
Why German allows this — and English never can
English prepositions are rigidly head-initial: the preposition opens the phrase, the noun follows, full stop. German inherited a freer system in which some of these relational words still behave like their older "postpositional" selves — relics of a stage when case endings, not word order, carried the grammatical information. Because German still marks case on the article and noun (den Fluss is unambiguously accusative no matter where entlang sits), the language can afford to let a few of these words drift to the back without confusing anyone. English, having shed most of its case endings, can't risk it — word order is doing all the work, so the preposition can never wander.
The practical upshot: when you meet den Fluss entlang or meiner Meinung nach, don't try to "fix" the word order. The postposed position is the correct, idiomatic one.
Common Mistakes
❌ Er saß gegenüber mir und schwieg.
Incorrect — with a pronoun, gegenüber should follow: mir gegenüber. Preposed sounds stiff.
✅ Er saß mir gegenüber und schwieg.
He sat opposite me in silence.
❌ Wir sind entlang den Fluss spaziert.
Incorrect — postposed entlang takes the accusative AFTER the noun: den Fluss entlang.
✅ Wir sind den Fluss entlang spaziert.
We strolled along the river.
❌ Nach meiner Meinung ist das falsch.
Not wrong grammatically, but unidiomatic — the natural form is the postposed set phrase.
✅ Meiner Meinung nach ist das falsch.
In my opinion, that's wrong.
❌ Zuliebe den Kindern blieben sie zusammen.
Incorrect — zuliebe is always postposed: den Kindern zuliebe.
✅ Den Kindern zuliebe blieben sie zusammen.
They stayed together for the children's sake.
❌ Geh entlang die Straße bis zur Ampel.
Incorrect — front+accusative is the error; entlang should follow the accusative noun.
✅ Geh die Straße entlang bis zur Ampel.
Walk along the street to the traffic light.
Every error here is the English instinct to put the relational word first. With this small set, resist it: gegenüber trails pronouns, entlang and zuliebe trail their nouns, and nach trails in the "according to" phrases.
Key Takeaways
- A few German words are postpositions: they follow their noun, which English prepositions never do.
- gegenüber (dative): follows pronouns (mir gegenüber); either order with nouns (gegenüber dem Bahnhof / dem Bahnhof gegenüber).
- entlang (along): postposed it takes the accusative (den Fluss entlang); preposed it takes dative/genitive (formal).
- nach in the "according to" sense is idiomatically postposed: meiner Meinung nach, dem Gesetz nach.
- zuliebe is always postposed and dative (den Kindern zuliebe); wegen can be postposed in literary/set-phrase register (der Form wegen).
- German tolerates this because case endings still carry the grammar; English, lacking them, cannot.
Now practice German
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning German→Related Topics
- Dative Prepositions in UseA2 — The everyday dative prepositions — aus, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu — what each one means and how to use them naturally.
- Accusative Prepositions in UseA2 — The meanings and idioms of durch, für, gegen, ohne and um across space, time and abstraction — including the precise um/gegen split for clock time and the bare-noun rule after ohne.
- Prepositions of Place and DirectionB1 — The full system of location, direction, and origin in German — built around wo / wohin / woher and the three-way split of English 'to'.
- Verb-Second (V2): The Core Rule of German Word OrderA1 — The finite verb is always the second element in a German main clause — exactly one constituent precedes it, and the subject jumps behind the verb whenever something else is fronted.
- The Mittelfeld and TeKaMoLo OrderingB1 — How adverbials and objects line up in the middle of a German clause — the default Temporal–Kausal–Modal–Lokal sequence and why it reverses English order.