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O hotel está a três quilómetros da estação.

O hotel está a três quilómetros da estação.
The hotel is three kilometres from the station.
From Lesson 43:Getting around (o motorista, a paragem de autocarro)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about O hotel está a três quilómetros da estação.

Why is there an a before três quilómetros?
In Portuguese, when you state how far away something is, you use the preposition a (at). A word-for-word translation of this sentence would be "The hotel is AT three kilometres from the station."
Why does the sentence use está instead of é?
Even though a hotel is a permanent building, Portuguese uses the verb estar (to be) or ficar (to stay / be located) to talk about the physical location or distance of places. You generally do not use ser to describe where a building is situated.
Where does the word da come from?
da is a mandatory combination (called a contraction) of the preposition de (of/from) and the feminine word for "the" (a). Because we need to say "from the", they merge into a single word.
How can I tell that estação is a feminine word?
Almost all Portuguese words that end in -ção (which often match English words ending in "-tion", like "station") are feminine. Because it is a feminine word, we must use da (de + a) before it, rather than the masculine equivalent do (de + o).

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