Det er huset, der ligger overfor stationen.

This is a very common Danish pattern called a cleft sentence.

• Det er huset ... literally looks like It is the house ...
• It is used to identify or emphasize something.
• In natural English, it often corresponds to It is the house that ...

Here, det does not refer to a specific thing. It is a dummy subject, just like it in English sentences such as It is John who called.

So the structure is:

• Det er X, der ...
• It is X that/who ...

Because Danish marks the at the end of the noun.

• et hus = a house
• huset = the house

The noun hus is a neuter noun, so its indefinite article is et. When it becomes definite, it takes -et:

• et hus → huset

So huset means the house.

No. In this sentence, der does not mean there.

Here, der is introducing a relative clause and means something like:

• that
• which
• who (in other sentences with people)

So:

• huset, der ligger overfor stationen
• the house that is opposite the station

This is a very common source of confusion because Danish der can also mean there in other contexts. You have to tell from the sentence structure which meaning it has.

Danish often uses position verbs where English would simply use be.

For location, Danish commonly says things like:

• Huset ligger ved søen = The house is by the lake
• Byen ligger i Jylland = The town is in Jutland

So ligger often means is situated / is located.

Even though ligge literally means lie, it is completely normal with places, buildings, towns, roads, islands, and so on. English usually does not say the house lies opposite the station, but Danish very naturally does.

Overfor means opposite or across from.

So:

• overfor stationen = opposite the station / across from the station

A few useful points:

• It is usually written as one word: overfor
• It comes directly before the place it relates to
• You do not need an extra word like English from

Examples:

• Skolen ligger overfor kirken = The school is opposite the church
• Jeg bor overfor banken = I live across from the bank

Because the sentence is talking about the station, not a station.

• en station = a station
• stationen = the station

The noun station is a common gender noun, so its definite ending is -en:

• en station → stationen

So overfor stationen means opposite the station.

Because this part is a relative clause, and Danish word order here is straightforward:

• der = subject of the clause
• ligger = verb
• overfor stationen = adverbial/prepositional phrase

So the order is:

• subject + verb + place expression

That gives:

• der ligger overfor stationen

This is different from main-clause word order in Danish, where the verb often comes in second position. Relative clauses do not use that same main-clause inversion pattern.

Yes, many learners will also see:

• Det er huset, som ligger overfor stationen

That is also understandable and natural to many speakers.

However, der is especially common when the relative word is the subject of the clause, as it is here:

• der is the thing that ligger

So in this sentence, der is very natural and very common.

A helpful beginner rule is:

• when the relative word is the subject, der is very common
• when it is not the subject, you will often see som

Not really in the way a learner might expect.

It is true that hus is a neuter noun, but in Det er huset ..., the det is mainly there because of the fixed cleft pattern Det er ...

So this is best understood as a sentence frame:

• Det er X, der ...

rather than as det directly standing in for hus.

In other words, det is not there simply because house is neuter. It is there because Danish uses Det er ... to say It is ...

The sentence has two parts:

1. Det er huset

   • main clause
   • It is the house

2. der ligger overfor stationen

   • relative clause
   • that is opposite the station

So the full pattern is:

• Det er + noun phrase + der + verb phrase

In this sentence:

• Det er = It is
• huset = the house
• der ligger overfor stationen = that is opposite the station

This is a very useful structure in Danish for identifying someone or something:

• Det er manden, der ringede = It is the man who called
• Det er bogen, der ligger på bordet = It is the book that is on the table