después

Des después is a Spanish adverb of time meaning “afterward” or “later.” It denotes an action or situation that occurs following a reference point, event, or moment. In everyday speech, después is commonly used to indicate sequence, as in comparing what happened first and what came next, and it can stand alone or appear in phrases that specify the relation in time.

In grammar, después can function in several ways. As a simple adverb, it can appear without a complement, especially in responses or short sentences: “Primero vamos, y después.” It is also used with the preposition después de to introduce a noun phrase or a verb in the infinitive, meaning “after” or “after doing something,” as in después de comer (after eating) or después de la clase (after class). In addition, después de que introduces a subordinate clause, functioning as a temporal conjunction. The tense of the clause after después de que depends on reality (indicative for past or habitual events, subjunctive for future or uncertain scenarios).

Etymology and pronunciation: después comes from the Latin post meaning “after,” formed through the evolution of a phrase meaning “afterward.” The word is typically pronounced des- PWES in many dialects, with the accent guiding the syllable boundary and the following cluster as a single temporal unit.

Synonyms and related expressions include luego and más tarde, while desafter de que constructions add additional nuance about sequence and event timing. Después is widely used across Spanish-speaking regions, with nuance differing slightly by dialect.