Love-Spanish.com: Is The Tube Near?

Friday, 12 July 2013

Is The Tube Near?

Introduction

This post deals with indicating how near/ far the tube^* is in Spanish, and the distance from where you are to the tube.

SCENARIO

Imagine you are with a relative, a friend, a work colleague or even a complete stranger who is looking for a tube station and asks you: "is the tube near?"

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda cerca el metro?

OUR TIP

The question is an invitation for you to say how far away the tube station entrance is. A yes/no answer may be strictly sufficient. However, with little effort, your answer could be a lot more informative.

Here are some examples of how you could reply:

El metro queda lejos (the tube station entrance is far away)
El metro queda bastante lejos (the tube station entrance is quite far away)
El metro queda muy lejos (the tube station entrance is very far away)
El metro queda cerca (the tube station entrance is near)
El metro queda bastante cerca (the tube station entrance is quite near)
El metro queda muy cerca (the tube station entrance is very near)
El metro queda a la vuelta de la esquina (the tube station entrance is around the corner)
El metro queda al final de la calle a la izquierda (the tube station entrance is at the end of the street/ road on the left)
El metro queda a dos manzanas (the tube station entrance is two blocks away)
El metro queda a dos cuadras (the tube station entrance is two blocks away)
El metro queda a cinco minutos a pie (the tube station entrance is five minutes away on foot)
El metro no queda cerca (the tube station entrance is not near)
El metro queda a doscientos metros^** (the tube station entrance is 200 meters away)
El metro queda a trescientos metros^** (the tube station entrance is 300 meters away)

*Note

The tube is another name for the 'underground' or 'subway'

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda cerca el metro?

*See some commonly used length in Spanish below

*Spanish Lengths

Some expressions of length/ distance commonly used in Spanish are shown below:

	Metros	Kilómetros
cien metros	100m
doscientos metros	200m
trescientos metros	300m
cuatrocientos metros	400m
quinientos metros	500m	1/2km
seiscientos metros	600m
setecientos metros	700m
ochocientos metros	800m
novecientos metros	900m
mil metros/ un kilómetro	1000m	1km