"I am with the girl in the kitchen."

[Hohenems]

So I wrote: "Ich bin in der Küche bei dem Mädchen." and it was marked wrong. Was it marked wrong because:

• "bei dem" should be "beim"?
• The sentence structure doesn't work but it could be "Ich bin bei dem (or beim) Mädchen in der Küche."?
• I can't use "bei" in this way and have to use "mit"? (Although I thought I read somewhere that you don't use "mit" when talking about being with someone, but rather "bei".)
• Duolingo has a bug and it should have been accepted?

Thanks in advance!

[wataya]

"Ich bin in der Küche bei dem Mädchen" is correct. "Ich bin bei dem Mädchen in der Küche" would also work. The use of 'mit' vs. 'bei' induces a subtle difference in meaning. 'bei' focuses more on the location "I am in the kitchen, next to the girl' while 'mit' focuses more on 'I and the girl, we are both in the kitchen'. Not sure how to express the difference in the framework of the original English sentence. Both solutions should be accepted.

[tholenst2]

I personally think it should be accepted, though isn't really a reason to invert the order here.

Why not just use the same order if it is correct?

Finally, I think "beim" would be somewhat more common than "bei dem".