Describe Your Neighborhood in Spanish

Quick Answer

¡Hola!Learn how to describe your neighborhood! Specifically, learn how to do the following in Spanish:

• describe landmarks in your neighborhood

• talk about how many of something there is

• use verbs in the negative

Vocabulary

Let's take a look at the vocab you learn in these lessons!

Nouns

Spanish	English
el mercado	market
el/la habitante	inhabitant
el edificio	building
el centro comercial	shopping center, mall
la dirección	address
la parada de autobús	bus stop
la piscina	pool
la planta	plant

You can combine the word parada (stop) with de and any means of transportation:

Spanish	English
la parada de autobús	bus stop
la parada de tren	train stop
la parada de taxi	taxi stop

Adjectives

In these lessons, you learn some useful adjectives of quantity.

Spanish	English
algunos	some, a few
muchos	many, a lot of

Gender and Plurality Tip

Keep in mind that these adjectives must match the gender and number of the nouns they describe!

examples
El barrio tiene algunos parques. The neighborhood has some/a few parks.
El barrio tiene muchos parques. The neighborhood has many/a lot of parks.
Hay algunas plantas. There are some/a few plants.
Hay muchas plantas. There are many/a lot of plants.

Prepositions

In these lessons, you also learn the following prepositions/prepositional phrases.

Spanish	English
al lado de	next to
cerca de	close to
delante de	in front of
en frente de	across from
entre	between
lejos de	far (away) from

examples
La piscina está al lado del parque. The pool is next to the park.
El parque está cerca del edificio. The park is close to the building.
El edificio está delante del parque. The building is in front of the park.
El mercado está en frente del cine. The market is across from the movie theater.
El edificio está entre el parque y el hospital. The building is between the park and the hospital.
El hospital está lejos de mi edificio. The hospital is far from my building.

Del

Remember that de and el combine to form the word del:

El parque está cerca del edificio.

El parque está cerca de el edificio.

El mercado está en frente del cine.

El mercado está en frente de el cine.

Negation

In these lessons, you learn how to make an affirmative sentence negative in Spanish. It's very easy! You simply put the word no before the conjugated verb.

Affirmative	Negative
Hay parques.(There are parks.)	No hay parques.(There are no parks./There aren't any parks.
Hay edificios altos.(There are tall buildings.)	No hay edificios altos.(There are no tall buildings./There aren't any tall buildings.
El barrio tiene piscina.(The neighborhood has a pool.)	El barrio no tiene piscina.(The neighborhood doesn't have a pool.)
El parque está cerca del mercado.(The park is close to the market.)	El parque no está cerca del mercado.(The park isn't close to the market.)
El hospital está al lado del cine.(The hospital is next to the movie theater.)	El hospital no está al lado del cine.(The hospital isn't next to the movie theater.)

Qué Tan

You can combine the phrase qué tan with any adjective in Spanish to ask how + adjective something or someone is:

examples
¿Qué tan grande es tu barrio? How big is your neighborhood?
¿Qué tan pequeña es tu casa? How small is your house?
¿Qué tan bonito es el mar? How beautiful is the sea?

Spain vs. Latin America

• In Spain, you'll hear cómo de used instead of qué tan to ask questions of degree. Both phrases are common in Latin America.

examples
¿Cómo de grande es tu barrio? How big is your neighborhood?
¿Cómo de pequeña es tu casa? How small is your house?
¿Cómo de bonito es el mar? How beautiful is the sea?

Phrases

Here are some of the phrases you learn in these lessons!

Spanish	English
¿Cómo es tu barrio?	What is your neighborhood like?
¿Cuál es tu dirección?	What's your address?
¿Qué tan grande es el barrio?	How big is the neighborhood?

Quiz Yourself!

Want more practice with the vocabulary you learned in these lessons? Click here!

Spanish Conversation

Time to put what you learn in these lessons to the test in the following example of a conversation in Spanish!

Ana:

¿Cómo es tu barrio?

What's your neighborhood like?

Pablo:

Es muy bonito. Tiene muchos parques.

It's very pretty. It has a lot of parks.

Ana:

¿Hay edificios altos?

Are there tall buildings?

Pablo:

Hay algunos edificios altos.

There are some tall buildings.

Ana:

¿Hay un mercado en el barrio?

Is there a market in the neighborhood?

Pablo:

Sí. El mercado está al lado del cine.

Yes. The market is next to the movie theater.

Ana:

¿Hay una piscina en el barrio?

Is there a pool in the neighborhood?

Pablo:

No, no hay piscina.

No, there's not a pool.

Ana:

¿Qué tan grande es el barrio?

How big is the neighborhood?

Pablo:

Es pequeño y muy agradable.

It's small and very nice.

Want to learn more about how to describe places in Spanish? Check out the following articles!

• Basic Prepositions in Spanish

• Negation and Negative Words in Spanish

• Adjective Placement