Tom wacht vóór het station op Anna.

Because they do two different things:

• vóór het station tells you the location: Tom is in front of the station.
• op Anna wachten is the normal Dutch way to say to wait for Anna.

So Dutch uses:

• voor / vóór = in front of / before
• wachten op = wait for

That is why both prepositions appear in the same sentence.

In Dutch, wachten op is a fixed combination meaning to wait for. The part op Anna belongs together in meaning, but other sentence elements, such as a place, can come before it.

So:

• Tom wacht vóór het station op Anna.

is perfectly normal.

This does not mean that wachten op is one single separable verb like opstaan. It is better to think of it as:

• wachten
  • op
    • person/thing

Dutch word order often puts the verb early in the sentence and lets other information come later.

Here it means in front of in a physical place sense.

Dutch voor / vóór can mean:

• before in time
• in front of in space
• for

In this sentence, because it is followed by het station, it means in front of the station.

Usually, they are the same word, but the accents can help show the intended meaning.

• voor is the normal spelling
• vóór can be written with accents to make it clear that the meaning is before / in front of, not for

So in this sentence, vóór het station helps avoid confusion with wachten op Anna.

In everyday writing, many people would simply write:

• Tom wacht voor het station op Anna.

The accents are mainly there for clarity or emphasis.

Because station is a het-word in Dutch.

Dutch nouns take either:

• de
• het

Unfortunately, this usually has to be learned with the noun. So you learn:

• het station

not

• de station

That is just the fixed Dutch pattern:

• wachten op iemand / iets

This means:

• to wait for someone / something

Many Dutch prepositions do not match English one-to-one. So although op often means on, after wachten it is simply the correct preposition.

Examples:

• Ik wacht op de bus.
• We wachten op hem.

You should learn wachten op as one set expression.

Yes, that is possible.

Dutch word order is flexible enough that both of these can work:

• Tom wacht vóór het station op Anna.
• Tom wacht op Anna vóór het station.

The difference is mostly about focus or what sounds most natural in context.

• vóór het station earlier in the sentence can make the location feel slightly more prominent.
• op Anna earlier can make the person feel slightly more prominent.

The original sentence is a very natural order.

Not exactly.

• vóór het station = in front of the station
• bij het station = at / near the station

So vóór is more specific. It tells you Tom is at the front side of the station, not just somewhere nearby.

Normally, no. Personal names usually appear without de or het.

So:

• Tom
• Anna

not:

• de Tom
• het Anna

In some dialects or informal regional speech, you may hear articles before names, but that is not standard Dutch for a learner to use by default.

The tricky part is the ch sound in wacht.

A rough guide:

• w is like English v/w, but usually with both lips slightly involved
• a is a short vowel, roughly like the a in British what for many learners
• cht ends with the Dutch guttural ch sound, followed by t

The ch is like the sound in Scottish loch or German Bach, not like English ch in chair.

So wacht is roughly: vakht / wakht, depending on accent.

Yes.

• wacht is the present tense form of wachten

• The subject is Tom, which is third person singular, so Dutch uses:

• ik wacht
• jij wacht
• hij/zij/Tom wacht

So Tom wacht means Tom waits / Tom is waiting, depending on context.