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De fiets staat achter het huis.

De fiets staat achter het huis.
The bicycle stands behind the house.
From Lesson 36:Prepositions of place (uit, bij)·Dutch

Breakdown of De fiets staat achter het huis.

het huis
the house
de fiets
the bicycle
staan
to stand
achter
behind

Questions & Answers about De fiets staat achter het huis.

Why does the sentence use staat (stands) instead of just saying the bike is behind the house?
In Dutch, we rarely just say a physical object "is" somewhere. We usually describe its posture using verbs like staan (to stand), liggen (to lie), or zitten (to sit). Since a bicycle rests upright on its wheels, it "stands" (staat).
If the bicycle fell over, would I still use staat?
No! Dutch is very literal about physical position. If the bike is tipped over on the grass, you would say De fiets ligt achter het huis (The bicycle lies behind the house).
Does the preposition achter mean both "behind" and "after"?
No, achter is a preposition of place that just means "behind". Even though it looks a lot like the English word "after", Dutch uses a completely different word (na) to mean "after" in time.
Why is it het huis instead of de huis?
In Dutch, there are two words for "the": de and het. Huis (house) happens to be a neuter word, so it must use het. Because there is no simple rule for which words use which article, you just have to memorize het huis together as a set!

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