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Le quartier est loin du centre-ville.

Le quartier est loin du centre-ville.
The neighborhood is far from the city center.
From Lesson 36:The preposition from/of (de, du, des)·French

Questions & Answers about Le quartier est loin du centre-ville.

Why does the sentence use du instead of just de for "from"?
In French, the phrase for "far from" is loin de. However, "the city center" is a masculine noun (le centre-ville). When the preposition de (of/from) and the article le (the) are right next to each other, they always combine to form the single word du. So, de + le becomes du.
How does the compound word centre-ville work?
It literally translates to "center city" (downtown). Notice that French puts the main idea (centre) before the describing word (ville). They are joined by a hyphen, and because centre is a masculine noun, the entire compound phrase acts as a masculine noun, which is why it uses le (and therefore du).
If I wanted to say the neighborhood is close to the city center, how would the sentence change?
You would replace loin (far) with près (close/near). The phrase for "close to" is près de. Because you are still saying "close to the city center", de and le still must contract into du. The new sentence would be: Le quartier est près du centre-ville.
Do you pronounce the "r" at the end of quartier?
No, the "r" is completely silent. The -er ending in quartier is pronounced like a long English "ay" sound (as in "play"). This is the exact same sound you hear at the end of French verbs ending in -er, like manger or parler.

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