előtt és elöl

Sometimes I see questions asking what is the difference between előtt and elöl?  Or between mögött and hátul? Well, there is a big difference.

First, these words show the location of something in general. They are standalone adverbs.

itt - here

ott - there

fent - upstairs/up there/above

lent - downstairs/down there/below

elöl - in the front

hátul - at the back

For example, in a classroom, we want to know where some students sit.  

Kati elöl ül.  Kati sits in the front.

Péter hátul ül.  Péter sits at the back.

Second, the following words are postpositions, they show location compared to something.

English has many prepositions, words like on, in, by, etc. which can be used with nouns to express a certain location: on the building, in the city, by the tree

Hungarian expresses some of these meanings using case suffixes and some of them using postpositions. This simply means that rather than preceding the noun they modify, they follow it.

In English, we say behind the tree and in Hungarian, we say a fa mögött.

előtt - in front of

mögött - behind

mellett - next to

fölött/ felett - above

alatt - below, under, underneath

között - between

a ház előtt - in front of the house

a fa alatt - under the tree

a ház mögött - behind the house

Kati Péter előtt ül. Kati sits in front of Péter.

Péter Kati mögött ül. Péter sits behind Kati.

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In later Duolingo skills, there are also words that show motion, direction to/ from something.

These are all postpositions:

To where?	Where?	From where?	English
elé	előtt	elől	in front of
mögé	mögött	mögül	behind
mellé	mellett	mellől	next to
fölé	fölött, felett	fölül	above
alá	alatt	alól	under
közé	között	közül	between

The first and third columns are only used if there is some kind of movement involved.

Note that elől and elöl are two different words.