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One hour walk or one hour´s walk

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ROBINDESBOIS
November 16, 2009, 09:18 AM
what is the difference in meaning? Thanks in advance.

Perikles
November 16, 2009, 09:25 AM
what is the difference in meaning? Thanks in advance.I suspect there is no real difference between them. If I were forced to find a difference, I would say that a 'one hour walk' is a specific planned route for a walker, say in a woodland with paths for walking. 'One hour's walk' is more general, so you might say to a lazy teenager 'no, you can't take the car, it's only an hour's walk'

But this might just be me.:thinking:

Rusty
November 16, 2009, 10:04 AM
A one-hour walk (notice that it takes a hyphen) and an hour's walk are synonymous terms, in my opinion.

hermit
November 16, 2009, 10:06 AM
nice definition, Perikles.

pjt33
November 16, 2009, 10:41 AM
I would say that a one-hour walk is a walk lasting one hour, and one hour's walk is its length. I can't offhand think of a sentence in which you can't substitute "5 kilometres" for "one hour's walk", but it doesn't make sense to say "After dinner we went for a 5 kilometres".

hermit
November 16, 2009, 12:20 PM
another nice "fine line". the two phrases are certainly synonymous, as
Rusty pointed out. the nuances in language study!

in spanish, i would say (for both) "...paseo de una hora" or "vuelta de
una hora". ¿hay otras frases más precisas en Español?

gracias,

hermit

ROBINDESBOIS
November 16, 2009, 03:41 PM
I thought there was a difference. Sorry.

Could it be :
One hour´s walk = occurring at a specific time
one-hour walk= things that occur regularly

pjt33
November 16, 2009, 03:51 PM
another nice "fine line". the two phrases are certainly synonymous
My point is that they aren't synonymous: they have different meanings and can't be interchanged freely.

Edit:
One hour's walk: la distancia que se puede caminar en una hora
One-hour walk: un paseo que dura una hora

ROBINDESBOIS
November 16, 2009, 04:24 PM
I got it now, thank you P.

irmamar
November 17, 2009, 08:27 AM
another nice "fine line". the two phrases are certainly synonymous, as
Rusty pointed out. the nuances in language study!

in spanish, i would say (for both) "...paseo de una hora" or "vuelta de
una hora". ¿hay otras frases más precisas en Español?

gracias,

hermit

You can say:

Estuve paseando durante una hora.
He hecho un paseo de una hora.

De mi casa a la tuya hay una hora de distancia.
De mi casa al trabajo tengo una hora en coche.

:)

Tomisimo
November 17, 2009, 10:58 PM
In practical terms there is essentially no difference between these two expressions, except how they're used. Technically, I agree with pjt33's analysis--

"one/an hour's walk" = a one-hour span of time where you are walking (the distance you can walk in one hour)
"one-hour walk" = a walk that takes one hour to complete.

For example:

(interchangeable) The village is over those hills-- It's an hour's walk from here / It's a one-hour walk from here.

(not interchangeable) I'm trying to get into shape, so I take a one-hour walk every morning before breakfast.

(not interchangeable) There is a guided, one-hour walk through the park to visit all three waterfalls.

Bonus points: What parts of speech can these two phrases be?