Xưởng gốm ở gần công viên.

Xưởng means a workshop, production shop, or factory-like place where things are made. Gốm means pottery or ceramics.

So xưởng gốm means pottery workshop, ceramics workshop, or sometimes ceramics factory, depending on context.

The basic structure is:

Xưởng gốm + ở gần + công viên

That is:

[subject/place] + [is located near] + [reference place]

So the sentence means that the pottery workshop is located near the park.

In this sentence, ở is about location. It means something like to be at or to be located at.

So here it is not being used in the sense of to live. It helps express where something is.

Yes, gần does mean near or close to.

Adding ở makes the sentence clearly about location: ở gần = to be located near.

You can also hear Xưởng gốm gần công viên, which is natural too. But ở gần is a very common way to phrase it.

Vietnamese does not always use a word that matches English is directly.

In this sentence, ở is doing the job of expressing location, so the idea of is near is already built into ở gần. You do not need a separate extra word for is.

In Vietnamese, many noun compounds are built with the main noun first and the describing noun after it.

So:

• xưởng = workshop/factory
• gốm = pottery/ceramics

Together, xưởng gốm literally means something like workshop of pottery/ceramics.

This is different from English, where the describing word often comes first, as in pottery workshop.

Vietnamese does not use articles like English a/an and the.

So xưởng gốm can mean:

• a pottery workshop
• the pottery workshop

And công viên can mean:

• a park
• the park

The exact meaning depends on context.

Classifiers are not required before every noun in Vietnamese.

They are especially common when you use:

• numbers
• demonstratives like this or that
• some more specific noun phrases

For example:

• một cái xưởng = one workshop
• công viên đó = that park

But in a simple statement like Xưởng gốm ở gần công viên, using the nouns without classifiers is completely normal.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Xưởng usually suggests a place where things are made, so it is broader than just shop. In English, you might translate it as:

• pottery workshop if it is small or artisanal
• ceramics factory if it is larger or more industrial

So the Vietnamese phrase itself does not force only one size or type.

Công viên means park, usually a public park.

In this sentence, it is the reference point for the location. The workshop is near the park.

A natural negative sentence is:

Xưởng gốm không ở gần công viên.
= The pottery workshop is not near the park.

A natural yes-no question is:

Xưởng gốm ở gần công viên không?
= Is the pottery workshop near the park?

You can also say:

Xưởng gốm có ở gần công viên không?

That is also understandable, but the version without có is very common and natural for simple location questions.