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2553 - Near Versus Nearby in English

Ouvir/Video/All Ears English/2553 - Near Versus Nearby in English

2553 - Near Versus Nearby in English

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0:00Hello, Aubrey. How's it going today? Hello,  Lindsay. I am great. I have a question for  
0:05you. Yeah, I'm ready. Do you live near any grocery  stores? Any in walking distance? I do, actually. I  
0:12have two or three of them in walking distance.  Yeah. Lucky. I had one in walking distance in  
0:17New York, but not here in Phoenix. Yeah. Yeah.  Different geographies, different types of cities,  
0:22right, Aubrey, that are laid out differently.  Yeah. This is interesting. I use the word near.  
0:27Do you live near any grocery stores? We're talking  about the difference between near and nearby. This  
0:33came up in a recent episode. Stay to the end.  We'll share details. If you missed that one,  
0:37you can definitely listen to these out of order.  Yeah, this is one of the differences near versus  
0:42nearby that I think our listeners might wonder  what is the difference or get confused or maybe  
0:47get frustrated. They're not quite sure. Right.  Yeah, it does seem strange. It's really about  
0:52the grammar because they basically have the same  meaning. They're both about proximity, right? They  
0:57both mean close. Yes. Okay, that's important to  know. They both mean the same thing that proximity  
1:03close. Um, but the grammar is kind of different,  which is what we're going to get into today. But  
1:08before we get any deeper, guys, hit that follow  button if you love Allers's English. Our style  
1:12is to focus on human connection in everything we  teach you. What does it mean for how to connect?  
1:18Hit follow because that's our style and we want  you on board as a member of our audience. All  
1:23right. Absolutely. All right, let's dive in here.  I think we'll start with this key difference,  
1:29sort of a pro tip. The main difference is that  near is used as a preposition, but nearby is  
1:36not. It really cannot be used as a preposition or  the grammar is incorrect. Sounds really off. So,  
1:41that's a key takeaway. The tricky thing is kind of  recognizing in a sentence, is this being used as  
1:47a preposition or an adjective or an adverb? That's  a little tricky. Yeah. So, it can be used in three  
1:52ways, right, Aubrey? A preposition, an adjective  and an adverb. Oh my gosh, that's a lot. So,  
1:57let's see how it looks when it comes to a  preposition. What does that mean? Yes. And both  
2:01are used as an adjective and an adverb. Both near  and nearby. But preposition only near can be used  
2:07as a preposition. Okay, good to know. So, here's  some examples in the preposition bucket here. So,  
2:13first one is the beach is near my house. Right.  We will never say the beach is nearby my house.  
2:20I mean, you might hear a native speaker say it,  right? Yes, you could hear someone say this. It's  
2:24a very common error, but we recommend using near.  That's the grammatically correct option. Yeah,  
2:31let's let's get this one right. Right. Good  stuff. Or he parked near the entrance to  
2:36save time. Same thing. We wouldn't say he parked  nearby the entrance to save time. Like you said,  
2:42some regional dialects that might be more common.  It wasn't in mine. There were a lot of grammar  
2:47mistakes that were common in my regional dialect.  This wasn't one of them. I didn't ever hear this.  
2:51Interesting. Okay. So, how do we know if it's  being used as a preposition, Aubrey? How can  
2:56we know? Yeah. So, this is interesting. It will  always be followed by a noun or a noun phrase if  
3:01it's a preposition. For example, for example, near  my house, near the restaurant, near the hotel,  
3:08near London. These are nouns that have either,  you know, a possessive pronoun, an article. So,  
3:15it makes it a noun phrase. I see. Prepositions  are usually about kind of orientation to the next  
3:20word. Right. Exactly. Right. And so all of these  nouns are a direct object. That gets a little more  
3:25complicated. Maybe we could talk about direct  objects on another episode, but it's easier,  
3:30I think, to just think of it as needing. You know,  it will always have a noun or a noun phrase after  
3:35it. All right. Good. Let's go into the adverb  bucket. Right. We're changing buckets, jumping  
3:39to a new bucket. The other way that near is used  is adverb. Two out of three. Right. Yes. So what  
3:47what does this look like, Aubrey? Yeah. So both  near and nearby function as an adverb. And when  
3:52it's used as an adverb, it always means not far  away. So nearby typically describes location. For  
3:59example, there aren't any gas stations nearby. Or  her dog will stay nearby, right? Yes. And near can  
4:07also describe location as an adverb in the same  way, but it's much less common. You could say the  
4:13dog stayed near while we talked. While we talked.  Right. In the US, we would be more likely to say  
4:19nearby, but it's grammatically correct to say near  as well. And what about time? Can near be used to  
4:25refer to time? Yes. Right. And then it would mean  soon or almost. And this is interesting. We do not  
4:32use nearby for time in this way. Nearby is really  just about location. But with time, we could say,  
4:39"As the deadline drew near, everyone got nervous."  Or a chunk that's really common. What is it,  
4:45Lindsay? Yeah. You might hear this in movies or  famous books, the end is near. Right. I feel like  
4:51so many movies these days are postapocalyptic,  right? That's true. Right. Or Stranger Things,  
4:57if anyone's been watching that. I think that had a  billion people streaming it on Netflix and crashed  
5:03Netflix. And I understand why because it was a  very entertaining show, I think. Interesting. I  
5:07haven't watched that. I should see that one. But  everyone likes that. I know. Yeah. Especially for  
5:11someone who's Gen X because it was all 80s. It was  very much what we grew up with, right? So, it's  
5:16pretty fun. Good stuff. Okay, Aubrey, we're back  from the break. Now, there is a third bucket for  
5:21near, which is an adjective use. So, tell us about  this one. And as an adjective, nearby is much more  
5:28common than near. They both grammatically  accurate, very possible in a sentence, but  
5:33you'll hear nearby more. For example, we can go  to a nearby beach or they didn't move to the area  
5:40due to pollution. Pollution from a nearby factory.  So, that word is an adjective describing the noun  
5:45that's directly after a nearby beach, a nearby  factory. Yeah. And do we use near in chunks,  
5:52like common chunks, would you say? Yes. Right.  So, near is not as common, but it is in these  
5:57chunks like near disaster or near future, for  example. Yeah, I've heard those chunks for sure.  
6:03for example, oh that was a near disaster. And  this could be used if you almost knocked over a  
6:08wine glass on a white rug or it could be something  bigger than that, right? An actual near disaster,  
6:14right? Exactly. Or I think AI will be everywhere  in the near future. So these chunks we will use  
6:20near, but there's only a few of them and then we  don't use near very much as an adjective in other  
6:26sentences in other contexts. Perfect. All right.  So we've made it super clear the three buckets,  
6:31right? the ways that these words are used or not  used. So, now let's see how it looks in a role  
6:36play. Aubrey, shall we dive into it? Perfect. Yes.  You and I are reminiscing about our college towns  
6:41in this role play. Oh, fun. Okay. All right. And  then we'll have to have a real conversation about  
6:45it after the role play. We'll see if any of this  is accurate. All right. Here we go. I loved my  
6:50college campus. There were so many things to  do nearby. Oh, I wish I had gone to college  
6:54in a beach town. It would have been amazing to  spend weekends at a nearby beach. True. But then  
7:00getting decent grades would be an uphill battle.  I live near the library and that was probably  
7:04really helpful to my grades. Good point. Well,  in the near future, I hope to live by a beach.  
7:11Nice. How was your college town, Aubrey? How  was it was like a ski town, mountains and snow,  
7:18no beach anywhere to be found. No beach for sure.  No beach. My college town was boring. There was  
7:24now there was nothing going on. It was really  isolated. So the campus was really a bubble and  
7:29I hated that. Like I wanted to be exploring the  world. I did not want to be in a little bubble  
7:33campus. I almost transferred to a city school  like BEu or George George Washington. Um but I  
7:39stayed. And you know four years of college is such  a short time in the span of your whole life. So  
7:46I'm glad I stayed. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. It's  crazy how different everyone's college experience  
7:51is depending on where you went, what the town was  like. So yeah, what you were studying. It's always  
7:56a great connection topic to ask someone about like  where they went to school and what it was like.  
8:00It's always interesting. Oh, it's always a really  good topic for sure. So, let's break down our use  
8:04of near and nearby here. So, I started by saying I  loved my college campus. There were so many things  
8:10to do nearby. So, Aubrey, is this an adjective,  adverb, or preposition? Yeah. So, we know it's  
8:16not a preposition because only near can be a  preposition, right? But it's an adverb modifying  
8:22the verb to do. It tells where those things are,  right? These adverbs say where or how. And in  
8:29this case, where nearby. Yes. Love it. All right.  Then what did you say? And then I said, I would  
8:35have loved to be spending weekends at a nearby  beach. And it's an adjective here describing  
8:41beach. Where is the beach? Nearby. Yep. And  then we dropped it in as a preposition. I said,  
8:46I lived near the library. Right. So describing  the location, the proximity to the library. And  
8:54then exactly. So it's followed by a noun phrase,  right? The library. Near the library. And we can't  
8:59use nearby. We don't use it as a preposition.  No. AB. And there is a bonus in here. Uphill  
9:04battle. Love that one. Yeah. For something to be  really difficult. And it's true. If I lived, if my  
9:10college town were near a beach, getting grades  would have been an uphill battle for me. Oh,  
9:15forget it. I would have been to the beach all the  time. Like if you had gone to college in Miami or  
9:19something, come on. Yeah, I'd probably failed out.  And then I said, "Well, in the near future, I hope  
9:26to live by a beach." So an adjective here in that  chunk in the near future. Just meaning soon. And I  
9:33think the more English we consume, we consume  media, movies, music. We hear these chunks,  
9:38right? So those are going to be the easiest ones  that'll come the most naturally for our listeners.  
9:42Exactly. Absolutely. So, for the episode that  inspired this one, scroll up and check out 2543.  
9:50Go out of your way for these English direction  phrases. Nice. So, Aubrey, what's our takeaway? I  
9:55mean, when it comes to talking about proximity and  what does it mean for connection in English? Yeah,  
10:01this is interesting because this is a pretty minor  error. Don't stress too much about whether you  
10:05should say near or nearby, but it is interesting.  It comes up so much in conversations, you know,  
10:11when you're talking about what's close to what,  you know, what about proximity. It's interesting,  
10:17right? So, this could tie into so many of  your conversations uh around connection. So,  
10:21just thinking about bringing up interesting topics  like we discussed where did you go to college?  
10:26What did you think of the college town? That's  a great one. And then let these near and nearby  
10:30words kind of come up as you talk about location  and proximity. Yes. And like you said, Lindsay,  
10:35the more you are taking in English, the more  it's just going to sound right and feel right,  
10:40which you should use near or nearby, because  you're hearing it used correctly on podcasts,  
10:44on TV shows. Love it. Good stuff, guys. If you  love our style here on Allers English, hit the  
10:50follow button right now so you don't miss a single  future episode. All right. Awesome. All right.  
10:56Good stuff, Aubrey. We'll see you next time.  Take care. See you next time. Bye bye. [Music]