earlier
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earlier
A short time ago; refers to a point in the recent past, usually only a few minutes or hours ago.
Ich habe ihn vorhin beim Bäcker getroffen, er müsste gleich hier sein.
I saw him earlier at the bakery; he should be here any minute.
As an adverb, 'vorhin' (earlier) can stand at the beginning of the sentence (position 1), which forces the verb into position 2. Just as often, however, it also appears inside the sentence after the conjugated verb.
Vorhin hat mich deine Schwester angerufen.
Your sister called me earlier.
'Vorhin' (earlier) describes a point in time that was only a short while ago, usually within the same hour or on the same day. It is very commonly used in spoken language.
Ich habe vorhin eine interessante Doku gesehen, sie lief vor etwa einer Stunde.
I watched an interesting documentary earlier; it was on about an hour ago.
The word is made up of 'vor' and 'hin'. 'Vor' points to the past, and the combination describes a point in time shortly before the present moment.
Was hast du vorhin in der Küche gemacht? Es roch so gut.
What were you doing in the kitchen earlier? It smelled so good.
right now / straight
'gerade' and 'vorhin' can both have to do with a time close to the present. 'gerade' means that something is happening right now, at this moment. 'vorhin' means that something happened a short time ago, so it is already over. That is why the difference matters: 'Ich telefoniere gerade' means the phone call is happening now. 'Ich habe vorhin telefoniert' means the call was earlier. Learners easily confuse the words because both are close to 'now'. Pay attention to whether the action is still happening or has already finished.
Heute vorhin hat er bei der Arbeit kurz mit dem Chef gesprochen.
Earlier today, he spoke briefly with the boss at work.
Lisa liest gerade eine Nachricht auf ihrem Handy.
Lisa is reading a message on her phone right now.