Love-Spanish.com: Is The College Near

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Is The College Near

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda cerca el colegio?

OUR TIP

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

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda cerca el colegio?

*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