Breakdown of Wir haben vorher nichts davon gewusst.
haben
to have
wir
we
nichts
nothing
wissen
to know (a fact)
davon
of it, from it, about it
vorher
before, beforehand
Questions & Answers about Wir haben vorher nichts davon gewusst.
Why use vorher here instead of a conjunction like bevor?
vorher is an adverb meaning "beforehand" or "previously". It stands alone in a single sentence to describe when something happened. Conjunctions like bevor (before) or nachdem (after)—which you are learning in this lesson—must connect two separate clauses. Since this is just one independent clause, we need the adverb vorher.
How does davon mean "about it" in this sentence?
The verb wissen often pairs with the preposition von to mean "to know about" or "to know of". When referring back to a thing or a situation rather than a person, German combines da + von to create the "da-compound" davon. So, instead of saying von es (which is incorrect for things), we use davon.
Why do we use gewusst (from wissen) here instead of gekannt (from kennen)?
Both verbs mean "to know," but wissen is used for knowing facts or having information, which is exactly what is happening here (knowing a fact about a situation). kennen is only used when you are personally acquainted with or familiar with a noun, like knowing a person, a city, or a specific book.
Could the word order be changed to davon nichts?
Yes, Wir haben vorher davon nichts gewusst is also grammatically correct. However, nichts davon is a very common fixed phrase that acts like a single block of meaning ("nothing of it"), so keeping them together in this order sounds very natural to native speakers.
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