Go to the homepage of our German Course Chapter 10: Daily Life University of Portsmouth
10.15 Adverbs of time

Introduction
As has been indicated, most German adjectives can be used as adverbs without a suffix being added. There are however a number of adverbs which are only (or primarily) used in the adverbial form. On the next two pages of this chapter we have listed a number of such adverbs which we have already encountered in this course or which are in common usage in German.

They have been divided up into three groups which describe when, how and where things happen - we call them adverbs of time, manner and place. Listed below are the most common German adverbs of time - note that both "morgens" and "vormittags" mean "in the morning".

abends
(in the evening)
   nachher
(afterwards)
bald 
(soon)
   nachts
(in the night)
danach 
(afterwards)
   nun
(now)
dann
(then)
   oft
(often)
früh 
(early)
   rechtzeitig
(in good time)
gleich 
(at once)
   schon
(already)
gleichzeitig 
(at the same time)
   selten
(rarely)
heute 
(today)
   sofort
(immediately)
immer 
(always)
   spät
(late)
jetzt
(now)
   täglich
(every day)
lange
(for a long time)
   vormittags
(in the morning)
manchmal
(sometimes)
   zuerst
(at first)
morgen
(tomorrow)
   zuletzt
(at last)
morgens
(in the morning)
  


Adverbs for days of the week

sonntags
(on Sundays)
   donnerstags 
(on Thursdays)
montags
(on Mondays)
    freitags
(on Fridays)
dienstags
(on Tuesdays)
   samstags /
sonnabends
mittwochs
(on Wednesdays)
(on Saturdays)

To translate "on Tuesday mornings", "on Wednesday evenings" etc., form a compound noun consisting of the name of the day followed by the adverb for the appropriate part of the day - "morgens", "vormittags", "abends" and "nachts". Such compound adverbs do not start with a capital letter. For example:

  • Wir treffen uns freitagabends zum Kegeln.
    (We meet on Friday evenings and go bowling.)
  • Ich leihe mir donnerstagnachmittags ein Video aus.
    (I rent a video on Thursday afternoons.)
  • Wir spielen sonnabendvormittags Fußball.
    (We play football on Saturday morning.)


Adverbial phrases
We have also encountered a number of adverbial phrases with which you can express the time in German. These are listed below:

am Montag 
(on Monday)
   jeden Montag
(every Monday)
am Morgen 
(in the morning)
   jeden Morgen 
(every morning)
am Vormittag 
(in the morning)
   jeden Vormittag 
(every morning)
am Nachmittag 
(in the afternoon)
   jeden Nachmittag
(every afternoon)
am Abend
(in the evening)
   jeden Abend
(every evening)
in der Nacht 
(in the night)
   jede Nacht
(every night)
die ganze Zeit
(the whole time)
   im Moment 
(at the moment)
zweimal in der Woche 
(twice a week)

Test yourself!
You can test yourself on your knowledge of adverbs of time by clicking on the bar below:



Notes
Both "der Morgen" and "der Vormittag" can be used to translate the English word "morning".

Many adverbial time phrases in German are in the accusative case. This is the case for "jeden Tag", "jede Nacht" etc. and also for the phrase "die ganze Zeit".

To translate "on Tuesday morning" or "every Wednesday evening", form a compound noun from the name of the day and the part of the day. As the gender of the compound noun is determined by the gender of the final element, the endings on "am" and "jede(n)" remain unchanged. For example:

  • Jeden Freitagabend treffen wir uns zum Kegeln.
    (Every Friday evening we meet up and go bowling.)
  • Jeden Donnerstagnachmittag leihe ich mir ein Video aus.
    (Every Thursday afternoon I rent a video.)
  • Am Sonnabendvormittag spielen wir Fußball.
    (We play football on Saturday morning.)


Weiter! Chapter 10.16: Adverbs of manner and place


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