34 Going places (‘zu’ und ‘in’ and ‘nach’)

Going places (‘zu’ und ‘in’ and ‘nach’)

All of these three German prepositions mean ‘to’ as in ‘toward’, but they are used in different contexts:

1) Going to geographical names always requires ‘nach’ unless you are talking about a country that happens to have article in German. There are only a handful of them: die USA, die Schweiz, der Iran, etc.. then use ‘in’:

• e.g. nach Deutschland, nach Berlin, in die Schweiz, in die USA
  

2) Going to people:

•  always use ‘zu’: wir gehen zu Oma = we are going to grandma
  

3) When going inside places, use ‘in’:

• Ich gehe in die Bank. =  ‘I go to the bank’