Questions & Answers about We zijn nu bij het station.
English says "at the station", so why do we use bij here?
In Dutch, bij is often used to mean "at" when you are near or at the general location of a place, like a building, someone's house, or an event. If you specifically meant you were physically inside the building, you could use in het station, but bij het station is the most natural way to say you are currently at the station area.
Why does nu (now) come before bij het station? In English we usually put "now" at the end.
Dutch word order prefers to put Time before Place. Because of this, the time word nu (now) comes right after the verb, before the place phrase bij het station.
Why is it het station instead of de station?
In Dutch, nouns are divided into categories (genders) that determine their article. Station is a "neuter" noun, which means it always takes the article het for "the". It's best to memorize the word together with its article: het station.
Is station pronounced the same as in English?
Not quite! Even though it is spelled exactly the same as in English, it is pronounced with a French influence. It sounds roughly like "stah-SYON".