How would I say 'near' as in, "Does anyone live near (city name)?"

Question

Hi everyone this is my first post so I'm sorry if I wrote the post incorrectly but my question is this. How would I say near in this sentence: "Does anyone live near (city name)?" Would it be 近く？

Answer 1

You are close, but 近く usually means "in the near future". To say "nearby", you can use (～の)近くに.

• 私は東京の近くに住んでいます。 I live near Tokyo.
• 誰かこの近くに住んでいますか？ Does anybody live nearby?
• (compare: 近く東京に行きます。 I will go to Tokyo soon / in the near future.)

Here, 近く is a lexicalized noun meaning "nearby place". You can find the list of similar nouns that look like the ku-form of i-adjectives in this question: Is anything implied, but not written, in this nominalization "遠くを見つめる"?

Alternatively, you can say 近いところに, although this is a bit wordy.