Level: elementary
We use prepositions to show how far things are:
Birmingham is 250 kilometres from London.
Birmingham is 250 kilometres away from London.
It is 250 kilometres from Birmingham to London.
Sometimes we use an adverbial of distance at the end of a clause:
We were in London. Birmingham was 250 kilometres away.
Birmingham was 250 kilometres off.
London and Birmingham are 250 kilometres apart.
- Adverbials of distance 1
- Adverbials of distance 2
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Hello!
The first exercise of adverbials of distance was "Put the words in order."
In question 5 of this exercise, the question was "kilometres are 1,200 and Beijing Shanghai apart".
I rearranged it as Beijing and Shanghai are 1,200 kilometres apart," but it was indicated as incorrect.
The correct answer was, "Shanghai and Beijing are 1,200 kilometres apart."
I thought I could put places' names in any order in the sentence. For example: I visited London and Birmingham when I was on holiday, or I visited Birmingham and London when I was on holiday.
Could you please explain this?
Thank you.
Hello Ehan Abrad,
You are correct in thinking that both 'Shanghai and Beijing' and 'Beijing and Shanghai' are correct here.
Your answer was marked as incorrect because our exercise has a technical limitation -- it only accepts one correct answer.
I have changed the grouping of the words so that now it is possible to choose the correct answer.
I'm sorry for the confusion, and thank you for pointing this out.
Best wishes,
Kirk
LearnEnglish team
Hi Samin,
In this example, to is the particle before the infinitive verb (take).
Some grammars consider this to be a preposition. But it's important to realise that it's not the same as to in the following examples.
Notice that this preposition to shows the target of an action, and the following verb takes the -ing form.
Does that make sense?
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Last biker,
This is an example of what we call a dummy subject. The word 'it' does not actually refer to anything in particular, but rather means something like It is true that or The fact is that. We can use a plural noun after this and it is quite common. We often use it when talking about distance and time, but also in other contexts:
You can read a little more about this topic here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi José,
Yes, the first answer is correct. 'It's 520' is not grammatically wrong, but it would be unusual unless B was repeating the distance after hearing A misunderstand it (e.g. A: How far is Amsterdam from Paris? B: It's 520 km away. A: 920 km away?! B: No, it's 520').
Otherwise, B should at least say 'kilometres' and really the most natural short answer would be just '520 kilometres' (without the subject and verb).
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team