"Nearby", etc. - natives please help

Tom   Saturday, July 06, 2002, 12:25 GMT
If you are a native speaker of English, I would appreciate it if you wrote how you feel about the following phrases:

"The museum is nearby."
"The museum is near from here."
"The museum is near to here."
"The museum is close to here."
"The museum is close."
"The museum is near."
"The museum is near here."

Can you think of any other expressions that mean the same thing?
Thanks.
Mohammed Asad Khan   Monday, July 08, 2002, 13:18 GMT
"The museum is at hand."
Kevin M.   Saturday, July 13, 2002, 06:46 GMT
"The museum is not far from here."
"Not far from here is the museum."
"From here, it is not far to the museum."

Insert in the place of "not far" any synonym (close, closeby, near)."

I hope this helped.
Tom   Saturday, July 13, 2002, 10:14 GMT
Thank you for your answer. But how do the 7 sentences I wrote sound to you? Which one would you use?
Mohammed Asad Khan   Saturday, July 13, 2002, 18:10 GMT
In my opinion, I'll use this one:

"The museum is near."

This is the only one that every body can understand easily.

As far as your question is concerned, how do they appeal to me?
Your try is pretty ok. A couple of them that I personally liked to consider.

a) "The museum is nearby."
b) "The museum is near."

Some of them are difficult to indicate the exact location of the museum.
Kathy   Saturday, July 13, 2002, 22:07 GMT
Me I think the better is

"the museum is close there"
because must the time when you asked somebody about something like.
Where is my pen?
he say, over there.
Tom   Saturday, July 13, 2002, 23:31 GMT
Mohammed and Kathy--

I asked for the opinions of NATIVE SPEAKERS, because I want to find out which of the sentences is the best (most natural). I don't think you guys are native speakers...
Kevin M.   Sunday, July 14, 2002, 05:25 GMT
OK the most natural (in my humble opinion) are:
"The museum is near here." and "The museum is near."
But more natural than those sentences would be "The museum is nearby."

"The museum is near from here." <--- That doesn't sound like a sentence you would hear in the United States. "The museum is near to here." <--Also awkward. For instance when you ask if you are near something here, we don't say "Am I near to the Post Office?" we say "Am I near the Post Office?" They might be more formal in some places. But when you say 'near to' or 'near from' that just doesn't sound right to me.

I hope I helped someone. See you later!
Tom   Sunday, July 14, 2002, 08:54 GMT
Thanks, Kevin. Any other native speakers who would like to voice their opinion on the sentences? (Britons? Which of the sentences is best in British English?)
Mike   Sunday, July 14, 2002, 13:32 GMT
"Near" can be an adjective and an adverb; the adjective is used with "to" and never with "from" - I went to visit a friend who lived near (to) where I was at that moment.
Near is not used as an attributive adjective except in phrases such as "a near miss" or "the near future".
Compare: "The restaurant is near the town hall" (preposition)
"The restaurant is quite near" (predicative adjective)
"We went to a nearby restaurant" (attributive adjective)

"Nearby" is used either as an adverb (There is an airport nearby) or an adjective (We flew from a nearby airport), but not as a preposition;

Don't put "to" before "here" and "there".
"John went TO the mall this morning", but "John went there this morning", so you can't say "near to here" or "near to there".
Something can be nearby, near, quite near, just round the corner, not far (from here), close at hand, close (to, by) - there is no such thing as "the best sentence", Tom, they are equally correct.
Neil Gratton   Monday, July 15, 2002, 21:44 GMT
I'm a native British-English speaker... the ones I can most likely imagine using or hearing are:

"Is the museum nearby?"
"Is the museum round here?"

"The museum's nearby"
"The museum isn't far"