Breakdown of Mi casa está cerca del edificio.
la casa
the house
estar
to be (location/state)
cerca
close / near
mi
my
del
from the / of the
el edificio
the building
Questions & Answers about Mi casa está cerca del edificio.
Why does this sentence use del instead of de el?
In Spanish, when the preposition de (of/from) is followed immediately by the masculine word for "the" (el), they must combine into the single word del. So, de plus el equals del. You will never see de el written out as two separate words.
I see cerca means "near", so why do we need the de part that is hidden inside del?
When you want to say "near something" in Spanish, the set phrase is cerca de. The word cerca on its own just means "nearby". So to say "near the building", you need cerca de plus el edificio, which becomes cerca del edificio.
Why do we use está instead of es for "is"?
We use está (from the verb estar) because we are talking about location. Even though a house's location doesn't normally change, Spanish always uses estar to say where something or someone is physically located.
If we changed the building to a feminine noun like biblioteca (library), would we still use a combined word like del?
No! The contraction only happens with the masculine el. If you were talking about the library, you would say cerca de la biblioteca. The words de and la never combine into a single word.
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