Klinikken ligger tæt på apoteket.

Because Danish often adds the definite article as an ending.

• klinik = clinic

• klinikken = the clinic

• apotek = pharmacy
• apoteket = the pharmacy

This is one of the big differences from English. Instead of putting a separate word like the in front, Danish usually adds the definiteness to the end of the noun.

The endings depend on the noun’s gender:

• common gender often takes -en
• neuter often takes -et

So:

• en klinik → klinikken
• et apotek → apoteket

That comes from grammatical gender in Danish.

Danish nouns are usually either:

• common gender → take en
• neuter → take et

So:

• en klinik
• et apotek

Unfortunately, there is not always a reliable rule based on meaning, so learners often need to memorize the gender along with the noun.

A good habit is to learn nouns as a unit:

• en klinik
• et apotek

not just klinik and apotek by themselves.

In Danish, ligger is very commonly used to talk about where places are located.

So for buildings, towns, shops, and similar places, Danish often prefers:

• ligger = is located / lies

That means Klinikken ligger tæt på apoteket sounds more natural than using er.

You can sometimes use er for location in some contexts, but with places and buildings, ligger is extremely common and idiomatic.

Examples:

• Skolen ligger ved siden af banken.
• Hotellet ligger i centrum.

Yes, originally it is related to lie / be lying, but in everyday Danish it is also a normal way to say that something is situated somewhere.

So depending on context, ligger can mean:

• is lying
• is located
• lies

In this sentence, it is best understood as is located.

Tæt på means close to or near.

It is a very common expression:

• tæt = close / tight
• på = on / on to / at, but here together with tæt it forms the expression tæt på = close to

So you should learn tæt på as a fixed phrase.

Examples:

• Hun bor tæt på stationen. = She lives close to the station.
• Skolen ligger tæt på parken. = The school is close to the park.

Because Danish uses the expression tæt på to mean close to.

English says close to, and Danish says tæt på. The preposition is just part of the normal pattern.

This is something worth memorizing as a chunk:

• tæt på noget = close to something

You cannot normally drop the på here.

The structure is:

• Klinikken = subject
• ligger = verb
• tæt på apoteket = location phrase

So the pattern is:

Subject + verb + place/location information

That is the normal word order in a simple main clause in Danish.

Yes. Grammatically, that is completely fine.

It means:

• The pharmacy is close to the clinic

The physical relationship is the same, but the sentence focus changes. In the original sentence, the topic is the clinic. In this version, the topic is the pharmacy.

So the choice depends on what you want to talk about.

A rough English-friendly guide could be:

• klinikken ≈ kli-NIK-en
• ligger ≈ LI-er / LIG-er, depending on accent and how carefully it is said
• tæt ≈ a bit like teht
• på ≈ like paw with a more rounded vowel
• apoteket ≈ a-po-TE-ged / a-po-TE-ket

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• Danish g in ligger is often softened.
• Final consonants can sound weaker than English learners expect.
• tæt has a vowel sound that may not match any exact English vowel.

If you want to sound natural, it is best to listen to native audio and repeat whole chunks such as ligger tæt på.

Usually yes in this kind of sentence. Apotek is the normal Danish word for a pharmacy.

In many contexts, English learners may think of drugstore, but apotek is usually closer to pharmacy than to a general shop selling many different products.

So in this sentence, pharmacy is the best match.

Normally no. That sounds ungrammatical in standard Danish.

In this sentence, you are talking about specific places, so Danish uses the definite forms:

• klinikken = the clinic
• apoteket = the pharmacy

If you wanted an indefinite meaning, you would need the indefinite articles:

• En klinik ligger tæt på et apotek.

That means A clinic is close to a pharmacy, which is a different meaning.

It usually suggests a normal, real-world location, especially because the subject is a building or place.

With buildings and institutions, ligger often describes where something is situated in a fairly stable sense.

So Klinikken ligger tæt på apoteket would normally be understood as the clinic’s location, not something temporary.