Breakdown of Der er ikke langt til byen.
byen
the city
ikke
not
der er
there is, there are
langt til
far (to)
Questions & Answers about Der er ikke langt til byen.
Why does the Danish sentence use Der er instead of Det er for "It is"?
In English you say "It is not far", but Danish uses Der er (literally "There is") when talking about general distances. If you used Det er, it would sound like you are pointing at a specific physical object and saying "That is not long."
Why is the word for "far" langt instead of just lang?
The root adjective lang means "long". When talking about distance generally, it acts as an adverb meaning "far" and must take the -t ending to become langt.
Does byen mean "the town" or "the city"?
It can mean both! Danish does not have separate words for town and city. They are both simply called en by, so byen translates to either "the town" or "the city" depending entirely on the context of the conversation.
Why does ikke come right after the verb er?
In a standard Danish main clause, the verb must be the second element (this is called the V2 rule). Short sentence adverbs like ikke (not) generally drop in immediately after that first verb.
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