Ich erreiche den Bahnhof in zwanzig Minuten.

in

Breakdown of Ich erreiche den Bahnhof in zwanzig Minuten.

• ich: I
• der Bahnhof: the train station
• den: the; (masculine, accusative)

Questions & Answers about Ich erreiche den Bahnhof in zwanzig Minuten.

Why does the sentence use erreiche instead of something like ankomme? Aren’t both “arrive”?

German has two common ways to express to arrive / to get to a place:

• erreichen – literally to reach.

  • Transitive verb: it takes a direct object in the accusative.
  • Focus: you manage to reach / get to something (a destination, a goal, a person by phone, etc.).
  • Example: Ich erreiche den Bahnhof in zwanzig Minuten. – I’ll reach the station in twenty minutes.

• ankommen (an) – to arrive (at).

  • Intransitive verb with a preposition: you arrive at somewhere.
  • Common pattern: ankommen + an + Dativ
  • Example: Ich komme in zwanzig Minuten am Bahnhof an. – I’ll arrive at the station in twenty minutes.

So erreiche here emphasizes reaching the station as a goal. With ankommen, you’d say am Bahnhof instead of den Bahnhof, and put an at the end because ankommen is separable:

• Ich komme am Bahnhof an.

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Why is it den Bahnhof and not der Bahnhof?