"Före" or "innan"

Åååh! Jag måste bli klar med min uppsats innan lovet. Före skulle jag säga. Jag sa ju det - att jag måste bli klar före lovet? Jaja, men du sa det med ett annat ord: du sa innan lovet.

Heter det inte före? - Är jag skitjobbig nu? - Bara lite. Yes, this is a tricky one. The two words are synonyms, and fairly often you can pick whichever you like, like this: Före Innan Lina kom hem före sin lillebror. Lina kom hem innan sin lillebror. Inga spel före läxorna.

Inga spel innan läxorna. Vi har idrott före matten. Vi har idrott innan matten. Ask an older person, and they might tell you that it's only the sentences on the left that are okay. That's how people used to be taught in school, and many still think that's the proper way to say it.

But languages change, and today both alternatives are accepted. These examples have in common that they're followed by just a single word - or to use the correct term: there's a nominal phrase following. When it looks like this, you can choose whichever word you like. But, when there's something longer - a whole subordinate clause - then only one of the words works. Listen to this: Det var ljust strax innan solen gick upp.

Det är vår innan det blir sommar. Jag vill läsa lite till innan jag somnar. Vi äter något innan bion börjar. In these sentences we can't just pick whichever of the two words. When there's a whole clause following, it's always: Innan Do you want to know why?

Note down a bit of grammar, and it'll become clear to you. It's about prepositions and subjunctions. One of the words is always a preposition. And prepositions, you often find just before a noun phrase. Före läggdags.

Före nästa match. Före den vackra soluppgången. The other word can work both as a preposition and as a subjunction. Subjunctions are little words that come first in subordinate clauses. Here are a few examples, first as a preposition, then as a subjunction: ...

innan läggdags... innan jag somnar. ... innan nästa match. ... innan vi spelade matchen. ... innan den vackra soluppgången. ...

innan solen gick upp. In the upper one of each pair, the word is used as a preposition, and in those cases you can change the word if you wish... But in the lower one of each pair, the word is a subjunction, and those we can't replace at will. Prepositions are followed by noun phrases. Subjunctions introduce subordinate clauses.

Does it sound hard? Maybe, a little. Go ahead and make up some more examples, mark out which are prepositions and which are subjunctions. Read your sentences out loud, and practice your feel for the language.