Modern German Grammar: A Practical Guide, Second Edition

81.8 Right away/very soon

sofort ‘straight away/without delay’

gleich ‘in a minute’

bald ‘soon’

von nun/jetzt an ‘from now on’

sobald ‘as soon as’

(a) Immediately, from now on

sofort implies ‘straight away/without delay’:

Bitte kommen Sie sofort zum Chef!

Please come to see the boss right away.

ab sofort denotes ‘from this moment onwards’:

Der Vertrag gilt ab sofort.

The contract/treaty has immediate effect.

(b) gleich ‘straight away/in a minute’ leaves a few moments to finish another job

first:

Ich komme gleich.

I’ll come straight away/be right there.

 See 34.2c (p. 71).

(c) bald ‘soon’ reassures someone that something is going to happen, maybe later that

day or in the next few days, depending on context:

Wann sind wir endlich da? Ganz bald.

When will we be there?Very soon./Quite soon./Not long.

(d) von nun/jetzt an is a slightly pompous way of indicating that from now on things

are going to be different:

Versprich mir, dass du von jetzt an nie wieder die Zunge

herausstreckst.

Promise me that you will never stick your tongue out again.

(e) As soon as something is done

Sobald ich das Manuskript erhalten habe, werde ich es überarbeiten.

As soon as I have received the manuscript I’ll revise it.

81.9 Eventually

(a) In the near future

in Kürze ‘shortly’

demnächst ‘shortly’

in nächster Zeit ‘in the very near future/shortly’

NOTE kürzlich is used to mean ‘recently/lately’ (see 81.3a).

81

Providing temporal context