Breakdown of Wir kommen aus der alten Stadt.
kommen
to come
aus
from / out of (made of)
wir
we
alt
old
die Stadt
the city
Questions & Answers about Wir kommen aus der alten Stadt.
Why does the sentence use der instead of die for the word Stadt?
The preposition aus always forces the next phrase into the dative case. Because Stadt is a feminine noun, its definite article changes from die to der in the dative case.
Why does the adjective alt get an -en ending here?
This is because of the dative case. Whenever you use a definite article (like der, dem, or den) in the dative case, the adjective that follows it always gets an -en ending, no matter if the noun is masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural!
I learned that von also means "from". Why use aus instead of von here?
The word aus literally means "out of". In German, you use aus when you are coming from inside a geographic location like a city, country, or building. You would use von if you were coming from a person, an activity, or a general direction.
Because of the -en ending, could der alten Stadt be plural?
No, Stadt is singular here (the plural is Städte). While plural adjectives in the dative case also end in -en, the plural definite article in the dative case is den, not der.
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