Breakdown of Der Bahnhof ist in der anderen Richtung.
sein
to be
in
in
der Bahnhof
the train station
andere
other, different
die Richtung
the direction
Questions & Answers about Der Bahnhof ist in der anderen Richtung.
Why does the adjective anderen end in -en here?
This is the core rule for adjective endings in the dative case! Whenever you have a definite article (like der, dem, or den) in the dative case, any adjective that comes after it gets an -en ending. Since in der is dative here, andere becomes anderen.
Wait, isn't der a masculine article? Why is it used with Richtung?
Words ending in -ung are always feminine, so it is die Richtung in the basic nominative case. However, because the preposition in forces the dative case here to show a fixed location, the feminine article die changes to der. It looks just like the masculine article, but here it is actually feminine dative!
Why is it in der Richtung and not in die Richtung? Isn't in a two-way preposition?
Yes, in is a two-way preposition. It takes the accusative case for movement toward a destination, and the dative case for a fixed location. Even though a 'direction' sounds like movement, the sentence describes where the station is located right now. Because it describes a state of being rather than movement to a new place, it uses the dative case.
Could I use the word andere without the -n ending if the article wasn't there?
If you dropped the definite article, the adjective would have to do the heavy lifting and show the case itself. So, without der, it would become in anderer Richtung (adding the -er ending for feminine dative). Because the article der is already doing that job here, the adjective just takes the standard -en ending.
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