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Yo llegué antes a la fiesta.

Yo llegué antes a la fiesta.
I arrived at the party earlier.
From Lesson 105:Past time expressions (ayer, anoche)·Spanish (Latin America)

Breakdown of Yo llegué antes a la fiesta.

a
to
la fiesta
the party
llegar
to arrive
antes
before / earlier

Questions & Answers about Yo llegué antes a la fiesta.

Why does antes mean "earlier" here? I thought it meant "before".
Antes is an adverb of time that generally means "before." When used on its own like this to describe an action in the past, it naturally translates to "earlier" or "beforehand" in English. If you specifically wanted to say "before the party," you would need to add de, making it antes de la fiesta.
Why is there a "u" in llegué?
The verb is llegar (to arrive). In the preterite (completed past) tense, verbs that end in -gar change their spelling to -gué in the yo form. The u is silent, but it is added to keep the hard "g" sound (like in "go"). Without the u, llegé would be pronounced with a soft "g" (like the English "h").
In English we say "arrived at the party". Why does this use a la fiesta instead of en la fiesta?
In Spanish, the verb llegar (to arrive) is viewed as a verb of motion toward a destination. Because of this, it is almost always followed by the preposition a (to). Think of it as saying "I arrived to the party."
Could I put antes at the end of the sentence instead?
Yes, absolutely! Adverbs of time in Spanish are quite flexible. You could easily say Yo llegué a la fiesta antes, or even put it at the very beginning (Antes, yo llegué a la fiesta). Placing it right after the verb is just a very common, natural choice.

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