Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ralphie]

I plan on giving a lesson to my intermediate adult students about the uses of "near" & "nearby." It's irritating when they describe every place with "nearby + the (place)." Could someone please give me a simple and logical explanation as to when to use "near" & "nearby?" Some examples I have are:

1) Nearby, is the school.
2) The school is nearby.
3) The school is near the park.
4) The children play near the school.

*I just lack the logical grammar explanation. Thanks!

[.38 Special]

Near can be an adjective, a preposition, or an adverb. It quantifies distance between the subject and the object.

Nearby is an adverb or adjective that is almost exclusively used after the object in a sentence when used as an adverb and after the subject of the sentence when it is used as an adjective. While it also quantifies distance between the subject and object, it focuses solely upon locality of the object to the subject. It is independent of the "near and far" duality.

Here is a loose rule of thumb: Near comes before what it modifies, nearby follows what it modifies.

"Nearby, is the school" is convoluted and ought to be avoided. "The school is nearby" would be much better. Using sentences like that will have people thinking you're Yoda: "Difficult is the force"

Your students can survive with never using nearby. Grammatically, near can correctly replace nearby in many circumstances, but nearby requires much more grammatical change to remain consistent.

[Ralphie]

[Steve_Rogers2008]