Faranda long waybothdescribe something at a great distance:
I can’t see veryfarwithout my glasses on.
San Francisco isa long wayfrom New York.
Faris used mostly in negatives and questions:
There’s a Thai restaurant notfarfrom here.
Howfaris your house from the station?
A long wayis used mostly in affirmative statements but we also use it in questions and negatives:
A:How long did it take you to get here today?
B:I left home at half past ten this morning.
A:Six hours. That’s a long time, isn’t it?
B:Yeah. It’sa long way.
Not:It’s far.
A:We have to go to Cathy’s place first to pick her up.
B:Is ita long wayfrom here?
A:No, it’snotfar.
Faris used in affirmative statements with words such asso,too, enoughandas. These expressions can refer to time as well as distance:
So far, we have sent four letters to the Council about the litter on the street.(time until now)
Six months istoo farahead. The restaurant only takes bookings for up to two months in advance.
Where we live isfar enoughaway from the city. I don’t want to move any further away.
From here, you can seeas far asthe ocean.
Faris also used in comparatives to mean ‘much’:
The roads here arefar betterthan in our country.
Food costsfar morein the UK.
We can useby farbefore a superlative adjective to add emphasis:
With more than seven million people, London isby far the biggestcity in England – the second city, Birmingham, has just over one million.
We use the phrasehas come a long wayto mean ‘has improved or developed’:
Our team hascomesucha long way. We lost our first game 5-0!
We canuse the phraseto be a long way off(+ noun or -ingform) to refer to a long time:
The holidaysare a long way off.
We’rea long way offretiring yet, Marlene.