4.10 Adverbs of place

to indicate a specific point in time:

Ich habe sie letzte Woche gesehen. I saw her last week. Ich habe Jakob letzten Freitag gesehen. I saw Jakob last Friday. Er hatte sie einen Augenblick zuvor gesehen. He had seen her a moment earlier. Wir verreisen dieses Jahr nicht. We aren’t going away this year.

Adverbs of place indicate position and answer the question ‘where?’. In some important contexts German and English usage differs. hier, dort, da for English ‘here’ and ‘there’:

However, da is often used to point in a general way when the difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’ is not crucial. In such contexts it can correspond to English ‘here’:

hier

English ‘here’

dort

English ‘there’

Wir wohnen schon lange hier in Potsdam. We’ve lived here in Potsdam for a long time. Ich sah deine Schwester dort stehen. I saw your sister standing there. da Ich sah ihn da an der Ecke stehen. less emphatic alternative to dort I saw him standing there on the corner.

Herr Meyer ist momentan nicht da. Mr Meyer is not here at the moment.

oben, unten for English ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ German lacks nouns corresponding to ‘top’ and ‘bottom’, and often uses phrases with oben or unten instead:

Sie stand oben auf der Treppe. She was standing at the top of the stairs. Sein Name steht unten auf der Liste. His name is at the bottom of the list.

mitten for English ‘middle’ The adverb mitten is often the most usual equivalent for the English noun ‘middle’. It is usually followed by an appropriate preposition:

Mitten im Garten ist ein Teich. There’s a pond in the middle of the garden. Die Polizei kam mitten in der Nacht. The police came in the middle of the night. Sie stellte die Vase mitten auf den Tisch. She put the vase in the middle of the table.