Love-Spanish.com: Is The Shopping Mall Near?

Sunday, 22 September 2013

Is The Shopping Mall Near?

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda cerca el centro comercial?

OUR TIP

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

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda cerca el centro comercial?

*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