English Translation
It won’t be long before we can travel to Mars.
why is it not "nach dem Mars " but “zu dem Mars” ?
“nach” is only used for things that don’t have an article, such as cities, countries and continents:
nach Berlin
nach Italien
nach Afrika
nach Hause
Mars has an article - a definitive one even, because there’s only one mars.
zum Mars/Mond/Jupiter/…, zur Erde
zum Eiffelturm
zur Pfaueninsel
zur Seestraße
zur Stadtmauer
zum Osttor
However, there are countries that have an article:
in die Schweiz
in die Niederlande
in die Mongolei
in die Türkei (or: nach Türkiye)
in die Ukraine (or: nach Ukraine)
Edit concerning Türkiye and Ukraine:
- In the english language world it has become frowned upon to use “the Ukraine” with an article. However this seems to be different in the german language, and Google’s AI says it is still valid and not politically incorrect to say “in die Ukraine”. It even says “nach Ukraine” would be ungrammatical.
- In 2022 the Turkish government applied internationally to change its name to “Türkiye”, primarily to avoid confusion in English with the bird. But again, Google AI says in german you can still say “Türkei”, although in official documents it is now often referred to as “Republik Türkiye”.
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