Grammar... der vs die
i came across a sentence that used "in der Schule", when i was expecting it to be "in die Schule."

can someone please explain why "der" is used in this instance when "Schule" is feminine?

i have a very basic, but rather insufficient understanding of grammar rules for German.

vielen dank.

Question

Grammar... der vs die
i came across a sentence that used "in der Schule", when i was expecting it to be "in die Schule."

can someone please explain why "der" is used in this instance when "Schule" is feminine?

i have a very basic, but rather insufficient understanding of grammar rules for German.

vielen dank.

Answer

For every preposition, you need to learn which case the preposition takes (as part of your vocabulary, just like you should learn nouns together with the article). Some prepositions can take two cases (the so called "Wechselpräpositionen"), dative or accusative. For those, the dative is used for a location ("where?"), and the accusative for a direction or goal ("where to?", "towards where?").

So it's "Sie geht in die Schule" (direction, "she goes to the school"), but "Sie ist jetzt in der Schule" (location, "now, she is in the school").

Details and a list of these prepositions:
http://www.mein-deutschbuch.de/lernen.php?menu_id=84

Answers · 1

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