Love-Spanish.com: Is The Bar Near?

Saturday, 14 September 2013

Is The Bar Near?

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda cerca el bar?

OUR TIP

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

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda cerca el bar?

*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