Breakdown of La carretera hasta el pueblo tiene ochenta kilómetros, así que saldremos temprano.
tener
to have
nosotros
we
temprano
early
salir
to leave
Questions & Answers about La carretera hasta el pueblo tiene ochenta kilómetros, así que saldremos temprano.
Why does Spanish say La carretera hasta el pueblo tiene ochenta kilómetros instead of something more literal like The road to the town is eighty kilometres?
Spanish often uses tener to talk about measurements such as length, duration, or age.
So la carretera ... tiene ochenta kilómetros literally means the road ... has eighty kilometres, but naturally it means the road is eighty kilometres long or it’s eighty kilometres to the town.
This is a normal Spanish structure. Similar examples:
- La película tiene dos horas. = The film is two hours long.
- El puente tiene cien metros. = The bridge is one hundred metres long.
What does hasta el pueblo mean here?
Here hasta means up to / as far as / all the way to.
So la carretera hasta el pueblo refers to the stretch of road that goes up to the town. In this sentence, it helps define the distance involved.
A learner might expect al pueblo, but hasta el pueblo emphasizes the full distance from here to the town.
Could I say al pueblo instead of hasta el pueblo?