Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Yoshiyuki]

I understand "walking down the street" doesn't necessarily mean the street is descending. Then what do you say when you walk down a street that is actually descending?

[bud]

Hi Yoshiyuki,

You're right. In fact, 'walking down the street' usually doesn't mean that the street is descending.

Nothing strikes me at the moment as a common way to say this. You could say 'walking down the hill,' but that doesn't by itself imply that the hill had a street on it. It also doesn't handle a situation for a sloping street, where you wouldn't really call the slope a hill.

I think I would probably say "walking down Madison." 'Madison' would refer to Madison St., for example. To any local person, it would be clear which direction was meant because they would know that Madison St. has a slope or is on a hill.

To a non-local, I'd probably say something like this: "Madison St. has a very steep grade. Well, we're walking down that street and suddenly..." In other words, I would set a context so that the exact meaning of your original phrase is clear.

Hope that helps.

[lotus]

Hi Yoshiyuki,

We usually use the phrase "walking downhill" to describe walking down a decending street.

In San Francisco, we would say "I was walking downhill on Broadway to get to Powell."

Or, if you noticed someone walking down a steep street, you can say "I saw John walking down on Broadway yesterday". Here, we shorten it and don't even say hill.

- lotus

[bud]

Ah... of course! Thanks, Lotus.