I know some words with this kanji. 以前 以後。But, this still sometimes trips me up. All the explanations sound like verbal explanations of a time line. There is a line in a play. 以前 お会いしたように。。。meaning something like, “I feel like I have met you before.” But, I still don’t feel like I own this pesky 以。
gives you a lot of words containing 以, often with example sentences.
Thank you. I think the problem I am having is too much information actually. I learned a lot of 以 words in the wild and understood them in context without difficulty and used them correctly while speaking. It was learning the kanji that caused confusion.
Well without context a kanji meaning can sometimes be just too abstract.
Which is why, in the wild, kanji never exist by themselves – they exist as words. A word might contain a single kanji, but it’s still a word and it can deviate from the meaning of that very kanji…
Still, knowing kanji meanings does often help a lot to guess the meaning of an unknown word…
for me, it isn’t the 以 part that trips me up with those words, but the dual meanings of 前/後…
“front/before” and “behind/after” make sense just fine. but when it comes to words like 以前 meaning “previously”, or 明後日 meaning “day after tomorrow”, it really feels to me like the meanings have reversed!
i get what’s going on here. even in english the word before can refer to something in the past or future depending on how it’s used. but it’s just… the way i have these kanji’s concepts metaphorically stored in my head gets in the way. 前 is something, to my mind’s eye, physically in front of me, so it’s something i haven’t gotten to yet, right? right…? 
Immersion Kit is a great resource for seeing + hearing words in context:
https://www.immersionkit.com/dictionary?keyword=以前&sort=sentence_length%3Aasc
Think of it as people standing in a line. Anyone who’s in front of you in space is there before you in time - they arrived before you, and will get served before you. And similarly anyone behind you in space is after you in time.
Yes exactly this, before I knew a few words that happen to include the 以 kanji as words not as abstract combinations of kanji. Although I guess words are abstractions. Now, I see the kanji and overthink what the word might mean.