Every once in a while, we all have to go somewhere but are unsure as to how far exactly that location is. We want to know if it’s too far to walk there or if driving a car would be necessary. This is also something we ask when traveling somewhere in order to plan our journey.
This article will explain a simple sentence pattern to find out just how long it would take to get from point A to point B. It is a pattern you are most likely to use once in Japan and it is fortunately quite simple to understand.
It is recommended that you have a basic understanding of Japanese particles and verbs before reading this article as I will not be explaining those here.
Note: Keep in mind that there's more than one way of asking questions about distances and this article will only explore one of the possible patterns.
Kara and made are two noun-following particles you will need to use when asking about how long it takes to get to a certain place. They can be roughly interpreted as from (for kara) and to (for made).
Before actually going any further about the sentence pattern you’ll want to learn, let’s introduce three different locations which we’ll use in our examples. I have written the three places in three different ways, depending on your level. The first writing is in Kanji, the second in hiragana and the third in romaji.
銀行：きんこう：ginkou: bank
図書館：としょかん：toshokan: library
郵便局：ゆうびんきょく：yuubinkyoku: post office
We’ll just stick to those three locations for this article as introducing too many words would end up being counterproductive, as the objective here is not to learn new vocabulary about places.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, kara and made are noun-following particles which means they should come after the nouns. Let’s demonstrate their use with a clear and simple example.
Let’s imagine, for a minute, that you wish to know how long it would take to get to the bank from the library. In this example, your starting point is the library and your destination is the bank. All you need to do is to put kara after your starting point and made after your destination.
図書館から銀行まで。。。
It’s that simple. Let’s use another example just to make sure. Let’s say you would like to know how long it would to get from the post office to the library. This time around, the post office is your starting point and the library is your destination.
郵便局から図書館まで。。。
As long as you remember that kara (from) should come after your starting point and that made (to) should come after your destination, asking for distances will be a breeze.
This is just the beginning of the sentence pattern however. Read the next section to figure out how to proceed from there.