Love-Spanish.com: Is The Beach Far Away?

Thursday, 1 August 2013

Is The Beach Far Away?

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda lejos la playa?

OUR TIP

The question is an invitation for you to say how far away the beach 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:

La playa queda lejos (the beach is far away)
La playa queda bastante lejos (the beach is quite far away)
La playa queda muy lejos (the beach is very far away)
La playa queda cerca (the beach is near)
La playa queda bastante cerca (the beach is quite near)
La playa queda muy cerca (the beach is very near)
La playa queda al final de la calle (the beach is at the end of the street/ road)
La playa queda a dos manzanas (the beach is two blocks away)
La playa queda a dos cuadras (the beach is two blocks away)
La playa queda a cinco minutos a pie (the beach is five minutes away on foot)
La playa no queda lejos (the beach is not far away)
La playa queda a doscientos metros^* (the beach is 200 meters away)
La playa queda a trescientos metros^* (the beach is 300 meters away)
La playa queda a dos kilómetros^* (the beach is 2 kilometres away)

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda lejos la playa?

*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