This is possible but rare. It is still used in special cases ("the prisoner was brought before the court"), but for your example (standing in line) the right phrase is "in front of".

Of course, "before" can be used for time. "He was in the line/queue before me" means he arrived first.

@George: I don't think it's that "rare", as such. It is simply on a more formal level that "in front of", such as in your example of legal language, or in poetry/prosaic literature.

e.g. She stood before the class, her hands trembling and her mouth wide open, but not a sound came out. (My own example).

"As I kneel before Thee on the Cross, most loving Saviour of my soul, my conscience reproaches me for having nailed Thee to that cross with these hands..." ( www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english/p00154.htm - 7k)

Hier scheint mir aber weniger die Position der einen Person in direkter Beziehung zur anderen relevant zu sein, sondern vielmehr die Reihenfolge in der Schlange -- es geht um die ordinale Position, nicht die "geographische". Da dürfte "before" doch passen, oder?

"Peter stood on 4th position. Paul stood before him on the 2nd, him and Mary way after him on 13th position."

Oder geht das nicht / würdet ihr es anders ausdrücken?

Sorry Mary: "I have it here before my eyes" is local, though by no means poetic or archaic; "in front of my eyes" would sound somewhat funny to my ears.
I believe that the 'local before' is not as rare as you think, although I can't remember any specific rule governing its use. Maybe someone else will help.

Er... the last time I dared contradict a lady she made me pay for my impudence - will you forgive me? :-)

@coldby: Don't blame Mary. I'm the one who claimed it was "rare"--and Mary's examples, like yours, disprove that idea.

@Sophil: I agree that "before" could be used in your example, although personally I would express it with "in front of". Also, note the preposition: 4th IN line or IN THE 4th position (not "on").

Opps, sorry Mary, sorry George - embarrassing as it is, apparently I need new glasses :-)

Could it be that "before" is only used in the same sense as the German "vor" in: vor Augen, vor Gericht, vor Gott, vor dem Volk / vor der Klasse? That is, a real place would be: In front of the cinema. Before the class could also mean that a pupil stood up in the last row and confessed something before the class.
Just my thoughts.

"Before" can translate "vor" (örtlich) only in very limited contexts. Usually you should say "in front of". It depends. And it's somewhat hard to figure out how to tell the contexts apart, now that I think about it.

If you say in German, for example, "Treffen wir uns um 10 Uhr vor der Kirche", you CANNOT translate "vor" with "before". You must say "in front of".

I think in the vast majority of cases, you must translate "vor" by "in front of." "Before" is mostly in certain stock expressions or in poetic uses.

For example, you can say "I appeared before the judge/court", "Cheers (the sitcom) is filmed before a live studio audience," "I knelt before the cross and beheld the countenance of Jesus," "She stood there before me, naked as the day she was born," "There I was, standing before the cameras and had nothing to say." But in all of theses cases, one could also use "in front of."

So German speakers, to be on the safe side, should be wary about using "before" to mean "vor", unless they know for sure that it is ok in the context.

Perhaps there are cases in which one MUST use "before" rather than "in front of", but I cannot think of any.

I think "before" always implies "facing" someone/something:
He stood before me = he was facing me
He went before the judge = he went to stand in front of the judge, facing him
She stood before the cross = she was facing the cross

etc.

I think Dude has a point; "he stood in front of me" if his back is towards me - a conductor stands in front of the audience but before the orchestra. But with a few exceptions before and in front of are interchangeable I'd say.

In front of the door?
http://www.beforethedoor.com/about-before-the-door

Not sure what your point is. "Before the Door" is a company name that happens to rhyme. Companies can be named pretty much anything, even, for example, Toys R Us.

So sieht es ein bekannter Sprachratgeber:

"Before is normally used to refer to time. However, it can refer to place:

a to talk about order in queues, lists, documents etc
Do you mind? I was before / in front of you!
Her name comes before mine in the alphabet.
We use 'a' before a consonant and 'the'* before a vowel.

b to mean 'in the presence of (somebody important)'
I came up before the magistrates for dangerous driving last week.

c in the expressions right before one's eyes, before one's very eyes."

(Michael Swan: Practical English Usage, 3rd ed. 2005, p.84)

*vermutlich gemeint: 'an'

Do you mind? I was before / in front of you! - I think what's meant here is "I was/got here before you," meaning timewise.
The other two examples in a) also have a time aspect to them, IMO.

#12: Die hätten sich aber doch nicht absichtlich einen groben Grammatikschnitzer geleistet, oder? Sie definieren es unter dem Link ja selbst als:
3. Preceding an entry way.
I am standing before the door, please let me in.
Deswegen wundere ich mich, warum es hier nicht "in front of" heißt. Deine These aus #9 ist auf den ersten Blick bestechend, aber leider unvereinbar mit Sätzen wie:

Our Lady of Valvanera, patroness of La Rioja, rests seated on a throne before a tree trunk,
http://coleccionbbva.com/en/anonymous-spanish...

Das gezeigte Bild zeigt die Dame von Valvanera mit dem Rücken zum Baum gekehrt. Und das widerspricht deiner Vermutung, dass "before" stets "facing" impliziere. Ein einmaliges Versehen ist das Wort nicht, denn die Wendung "so. before sth." ist überaus oft in solchen Bildbeschreibungen nachweisbar: The portrait of Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, shows a young woman seated on a chair before a landscape background.https://books.google.de/books?id=unp8GmVvtlsC... Bekanntlich ist die Mona aber dem Betrachter zugewandt und nicht der Landschaft.

Re #15: Okay, so they're facing the door, big effing deal. I didn't take the time to thoroughly investigate your asinine musings, but fwiw, I find "before the door" all by itself slightly confusing. "What came before the door?" would be my first question.

As for your coleccionbbva link: for one thing, you quote a Spanish website that's been translated by what I can only presume to be Spanish-speaking individuals: Translation (English): Lambe & Nieto

For another, as you said yourself, mine is only a "Vermutung" and not gospel. I never said it's the law.

Thirdly, it's the exceptions that confirm the rule.

Fourthly (and fifthly), sure, the painted figure is not facing the tree trunk (as pointed out in your link), but how should the painter have accomplished having the figure face the trunk? Should the back of the figure have been painted? Maybe a side view? Besides, it's the viewer facing the painting and hence both the figure and the background. Maybe the viewer or the person describing the painting projects his/her vantage point into the figure? Again, this is only a "Vermutung," so don't go finding more "gospel" to contradict what I just said. Or, if you do, be aware that I won't waste my time and respond again.

Furthermore, I don't know who Harvey Rachlin is and what scene he describes in his book in your other link. Bekanntlich ist die Mona aber dem Betrachter zugewandt und nicht der Landschaft.- not sure what you're talking about, and frankly, I don't care. It's not that important to me.

But, and IMO most importantly here, you have this habit of constantly finding sources (this is certainly not the first time) - no matter how obscure or maybe even irrelevant to a particular topic - and then using them as gospel to contradict anything anyone on this forum might be saying, regardless of how general that person's statement might be. Why is it that you seem to think your sources are always infallible? Were they handed drown as tablets from some divine being? I don't know if you do this just to be spiteful for fun or because you just can't help yourself and being an annoying little worm is simply your very nature.

WTF, over!

#10: Kann man nicht sagen: a conductor stands in front of the orchestra?

@#17: of course you can

OK. Weil oben stand before. Da geht wohl beides.

I think you might have misunderstood Mike's comment.

Furthermore, I don't know who Harvey Rachlin is and what scene he describes in his book in your other link.
Das ist aber wirklich ein Armutszeugnis, dude. Dabei sagt er es so explizit in #15:

"The portrait of Mona Lisa, or La Gioconda, shows a young woman seated on a chair before a landscape background"

Wenn du damit nichts anfangen kannst, also, dann erinnere mich künftig daran, dass du dich gerade als unverbesserlich bildungsfern geoutet hast.

As for your coleccionbbva link: for one thing, you quote a Spanish website that's been translated by what I can only presume to be Spanish-speaking individuals

War mir sowas von klar, dass dieser Einwand kommen würde, darum habe ich zusätzlich den Rachlin angeführt. Ich wollte dir und mir die Arbeit ersparen, aber da du es nicht anders haben willst, kann man das natürlich beliebig weiterführen: "Figures in a landscape before a harbour" betitelt das Gettymuseum eines seiner Bilder http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/3... - "Nude before a Harbor" hängt beim Art Institute Chicago: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/81977 - "Virgin and child before a landscape" im Philadelphia Museum of Art: http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/perman... - "Portrait of Seated Man in Blue Before a Landscape Painting" im Princeton University Art Museum: http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/fr/collections... - "A Khmer bronze head of a Buddha before a mandorla" wurde von Christie's versteigert http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/a-khme... - und leichtes Gurgeln findet einige tausend Belege mehr. Der Beispiele sind zu viele und zu verschiedene, um sie als "exceptions that confirm the rule" abzutun. Natürlich kannst du für dich beanspruchen, dass nur du alleine richtig Englisch kannst und all diese Kunstsachverständigen, Kuratoren und Auktionatoren hirnlose Idioten sind, die von ihrer eigenen Muttersprache keine Ahnung haben. Aber ich nehme an, dass du mit dieser Auffassung recht alleine bleiben wirst.

shows a young woman seated on a chair before a landscape background

Ich stand vor der Dame schon im Louvre und habe trotzdem keine Ahnung, was im Hintergrund zu sehen ist. Wer achtet denn auf den Hintergrund? Wenn das deine Messlatte für Banausentum ist, werden da nicht so viele drüberkommen.

Ich weiß gar nicht, worüber ihr euch streitet. Dass 'before' in literarisch/dichterischem Kontext oft vorkommt, steht doch schon relativ früh irgendwo in dem Faden, und Namen von Bildern fallen da meiner Meinung nach locker drunter.

Dass 'before' in den meisten 'normalen' Kontexten vorwiegend zeitlich verwendet wird, steht in zig Fäden hier auf LEO allein. Dass muss doch nicht alles noch mal erklärt werden.

Gibson, dude hat doch gerade zugegeben, dass ihm das absolut nichts sagt ("I don't know ... what scene he describes in his book") wenn zitiertes Buch explizit die Mona Lisa beim Namen nennt. Was braucht es denn noch Weiteres, um ihm Bildungsferne zu attestieren? :-)

Tatsächlich findet sich "in front of a landscape" in Gemäldetiteln weitaus seltener als "before a landscape". Oder hier mal als Beispiel "before a village": https://www.google.de/search?q="before+a+village" Es scheint doch ein gängiger Begriff zu sein und keine Ausnahme von der Regel.

(Im übrigen sind Gemälde und ihre Titel für unsereins durchaus ein "normaler" Kontext. Sind nicht alle Leute so bildungsfern wie dude. ;-) )

(Im übrigen sind Gemälde und ihre Titel für unsereins durchaus ein "normaler" Kontext  
What's "normal" -it's normal for instance that the wording of titles of paintings and descriptions of them tends to use rather formal constructions and terms. That "before" is more formal (I'll say "generally" before Cuadings pounces) than "in front of" was mentioned in this thread nearly ten years ago; little has changed since then. :-)

Never mind, not worth it.

Ich stand vor der Dame schon im Louvre (#22)

I've heard that the Mona Lisa on display is a fake and they secretly keep the original in a safe - or is that just an urban legend?

cuau is up to his usual trick, i.e. finding a marginal usage, and saying this proves some point or other. I don't know whether he is unable to distinguish a marginal usage, or whether he is like the little boy in the rhyme:

Speak roughly to your little boy
And beat him when he sneezes
He only does it to annoy
Because he knows it teases

dude has spoken roughly. (cuau will now doubtless come up with some literary nugget to prove I could have said 'rough' here.)

Re #23: Was braucht es denn noch Weiteres, um ihm Bildungsferne zu attestieren? - not that it really matters but I prefer to blame my faux pas (who on this planet hasn't seen an image of the Mona Lisa?) on having to confront the mountain of garbage disguised as argumentation in #15 at 5:43 in the morning and being barely awake. Nice to see it served as ready fodder for ridicule to an obviously feeble, childlike mind.

Geschenkt, dude. Ich bin sicher, niemand hier – auch Cuauh nicht – denkt, dass Du noch nichts von Mona Lisa gehört hättest. Die Polemik und Scheinheiligkeit in ##21 und 23, eine Reaktion auf Deinen Zornesausbruch in #16 (der übrigens auch nicht gerade vornehmer Zurückhaltung entspringt, wenn ich das anmerken darf), ist für jeden leicht durchschaubar.

Well, fwiw, the Nahuatl impostor still manages to push my buttons every once in a while, unfortunately. :-)

#29: Dabei weiß ich nicht, worüber er sich so aufregt. Schließlich habe ich nicht den Gebrauch von before/in front of in Frage gestellt, sondern nur seine persönliche These angezweifelt, dass die räumliche Bedeutung von before ein facing impliziere. In Kunst und Fotografie ist das eindeutig nicht der Fall, denn da können die Figuren ganz beliebig before the backdrop angeordnet sein.