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

Sunday 25 August 2013

Is The Supermarket Far Away?

Introduction

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

SCENARIO

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

In Spanish, the other person could choose to say:

¿Queda lejos el supermercado^*?

OUR TIP

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

*Note

Often shortened to just “super”

Now you should practise answering the question:

¿Queda lejos el supermercado?

*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