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Which is/are the correct and natural answer(s) to this question?

  • It is ten miles far from here.
  • It is ten miles far away from here.
  • It is ten miles far away.
  • It is ten miles away.
  • It is ten miles away from here.
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    a, b, c are wrong, d, e are right.
    – Mitch
    Apr 13, 2012 at 15:46

6 Answers 6

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Usually you imply the current position in the question, and imply everything except the distance in the answer (as it's given in the question), so it would be just:

"How far is it to the safari park?"
"Ten miles."

If you flesh that out with all the redundancy, you get:

"How far is it to the safari park from here?"
"It's ten miles to the safari park from here."

You can of course leave out different parts of the answer, and change the order:

"It's ten miles from here."
"It's ten miles to the safari park."
"It's ten miles."
"It's ten miles from here to the safari park."
"From here it's ten miles to the safari park."
"From here it's ten miles."
"The safari park is ten miles from here."

You can use away instead of from here:

"It's ten miles away."
"The safari park is ten miles away."

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Both of these are correct:

It is 10 miles away.

It is 10 miles from here.

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    (minor note for the questioner: both "ten" and "10" are acceptable. Some style books will say "spell out small numbers, use numerals for larger ones")
    – horatio
    Apr 13, 2012 at 16:11
  • Ooooo...my AP style was showing, wasn't it!? Good point, Horatio.
    – JLG
    Apr 13, 2012 at 16:28
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Far is an adjective that denotes an indeterminate distance. It's almost synonymous with distant, although that usually denotes a distance which can be measured.

Consequently you can say How far [away] is... because you are asking about a distance which is not known.

For the answer, the distance is known, so far should not be used, and It's ten miles away is correct. Again, distant isn't generally used. It's ten miles distant is technically correct but not idiomatic.

You don't need to add "from here" because you have referenced it in the question, so it's implicit in the answer.

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You've already established the starting place in the question:

How far is the safari park from here?

So the answer need not include this. Ten miles is the shortest possible answer. Ten miles away is good too.

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Assuming "ten miles" has to be a part of the answer:

  1. It is ten miles from here.
  2. It is ten miles away.
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Ditto Cornbreak, Indrek, and JLG.

Let me just add, after seeing options you considered: "Far" is being used as an interogatory word here and would not normally be part of the answer to such a question. Just like if someone asked you, "Who is the owner of the safari park?", you wouldn't reply, "The owner is who Fred Smith," but just "The owner is Fred Smith" or simply "Fred Smith".

Side note: For some reason I've never understood, school teachers in America routinely insist that the answer to a question must include all the information from the question. That is, if a test question asks, say, "On what continent is France located?", the student is expected to answer, "France is located on the continent of Europe". The student who writes simply "Europe" is marked wrong. I always thought this a silly rule. But if you take classes in America, you may have to deal with it.

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    True about U.S. teachers requiring that. I think they're trying to get students to write in complete sentences, which we English enthusiasts probably should applaud!
    – JLG
    Apr 13, 2012 at 15:54
  • In high school I was marked wrong for the short answer on the basis that they were not complete sentences, not that they didn't regurgitate all of the information.
    – Don Branson
    Apr 13, 2012 at 21:02
  • I had a chemistry teacher who made fun of other teachers for that. He said on his tests, if he asks, say, "What chemical reaction occurs when you mix A with B?", just answer with the chemical equation or the resultant product. You don't have to write, "Yes indeed, when you mix A and B there is a chemical reaction ..."
    – Jay
    Apr 16, 2012 at 15:51

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