Word
Wir haben vor dem Kurs gearbeitet.
Meaning
We worked before the course.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Wir haben vor dem Kurs gearbeitet.
Why is it vor dem Kurs and not vor den Kurs?
The preposition vor is being used here to talk about time (meaning 'before'). When used to talk about time, vor always requires the following noun to be in the dative case. Since Kurs is masculine (der Kurs), the article der changes to the dative dem.
Doesn't vor also mean 'in front of'?
Yes! vor can describe a physical location ('in front of') or a point in time ('before'). When talking about physical location, it is a two-way preposition that takes either accusative or dative depending on movement. But remember: when used to talk about time, like in this sentence, it is strictly dative.
Why is gearbeitet pushed to the very end of the sentence?
This sentence is in the conversational past tense (the Perfekt). In this tense, the conjugated helping verb (haben) takes the second position in the sentence, and it kicks the past participle (gearbeitet) all the way to the end.
Why does the past participle gearbeitet end in -et instead of just -t?