SPANISH 101 HELP?! " A que distancia...?"

Question

Hello! am an intro to spanish student and I have to record a brief dialogue with an online partner and the prompt for the dialogue is: ¿A qué distancia...? Interview your partner to find out the distance between Madrid and various locations.

This is kind of a vague assignment, but I am assuming since it is the title of the assignment, the questions have to start with "A que distancia.."? I think we need to ask questions like "At what distance is Madrid from Barcelona"? But I am not sure. I truly need your help. Could you give me an example of how you would ask a question related to this starting with "A que distancia?" Does that essentially translate to "How far...?" I know we recently learned how to say large numbers, so maybe that will be incorporated in our answers. Thank you so much!!!

Answer 1

En España el sistema métrico se utiliza para la medición.

Entonces, las distancias entre ciudades las debes decir en Kilómetros.

La distancia que hay entre Madrid y Barcelona es 620 Km.

Ahora, los números de este ejemplo serían:

600 seis cientos

20 veinte

Si los unes puedes decir Seiscientos veinte Kilómetros de distancia.

Answer 2

Hello Angelica,

 

yes, basically ¿A qué distancia...? means "How far...?"

 

Some examples within the city of Madrid could be:

 

"¿A qué distancia queda el hotel del aeropuerto Barajas?"

 

How far is the hotel from Barajas airport?

 

"¿A qué distancia está el Parque del Retiro del estadio Bernabéu?"

 

How far is Parque del Retiro from Bernabeu stadium?

 

Examples between Madrid and other cities could be:

 

¿A qué distancia está Madrid de Valencia?

 

¿A qué distancia está Madrid de San Sebastián

 

Same formula, just changing the location. 

 

For the verb, which in English would be "is" you can use either "está" or "queda". These are third person for "estar and "quedar", since the location asked about is considered a third person.

 

"Quedar" doesn't mean "to be", but it means "to locate", which is another way to express the question in Spanish. Both verbs are correct to use. It would be like asking "How far does Madrid locate from Valencia?"

 

 

When speaking of specific locations such as the hotel or the stadium, notice we use "del" instead of "de". That is because the article for both those words is "el", and "del" is a contraction of "de" and "el".

"¿A qué distancia está el Parque del Retiro del estadio Bernabéu?"

 

El parque; el estadio.

 

If the noun were feminine, the article would be "la".

 

La casa; la plaza.

 

In that case, the question would go:

 

¿A qué distancia está el aeropuerto de la casa? 

 

When speaking of cities, no article is needed. Therefore, we only use "de".

 

¿A qué distancia está Madrid de Bilbao?

 

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know. Hope I helped!