Questions & Answers about Im Norden ist es kalt.
The current lesson is about using two-way prepositions with the accusative for direction. Why is im used here instead of the accusative?
The preposition in is a two-way preposition. While your current lesson focuses on using the accusative case for movement towards a goal (Wohin?), this sentence describes a static location answering the question "Where?" (Wo?). For static locations, two-way prepositions take the dative case. Im is the contraction of in and the dative masculine article dem.
How do I know that Norden gets the article dem (inside im)?
All compass directions in German, such as der Norden (the north), der Süden (the south), der Osten (the east), and der Westen (the west), are masculine. Since we need the dative case here for a static location, the masculine article der changes to dem.
Why does the verb ist come before the subject es?
German uses "verb-second" word order in standard statements. Because this sentence starts with the location phrase Im Norden in the first position, the verb ist must take the second position. This pushes the subject es right after the verb into the third position.
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