Love-Spanish.com: Is The Cinema Near?

Thursday, 29 August 2013

Is The Cinema Near?

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda cerca el cine?

OUR TIP

The question is an invitation for you to say how far away the cinema 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 cine queda lejos (the cinema is far away)
El cine queda bastante lejos (the cinema is quite far away)
El cine queda muy lejos (the cinema is very far away)
El cine queda cerca (the cinema is near)
El cine queda bastante cerca (the cinema is quite near)
El cine queda muy cerca (the cinema is very near)
El cine queda a la vuelta de la esquina (the cinema is around the corner)
El cine queda al final de la calle a la izquierda (the cinema is at the end of the street/ road on the left)
El cine queda a dos manzanas (the cinema is two blocks away)
El cine queda a dos cuadras (the cinema is two blocks away)
El cine queda a cinco minutos a pie (the cinema is five minutes away on foot)
El cine queda en el centro (the cinema is in the town centre/ downtown)
El cine no queda cerca (the cinema is not near)
El cine queda a doscientos metros^* (the cinema is 200 meters away)
El cine queda a trescientos metros^* (the cinema is 300 meters away)

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda cerca el cine?

*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