(the World Cup is only) one week away

[peter199083]

Yesterday I was listening to BBC World Service, in which the presenter said,

The World Cup is only one week away.

I understand what he meant and meanwhile this collocation reminds me of another I learnt- one week to go. I remember when Beijing held the Olympic Games, China Daily's English edition counted down how many days left for the Games to start and the bottom-right corner of its front page updated the remaining days, saying that:

24 days to go

I would like to ask you if in the World Cup case I could use those two interchangeably. Thank you.

 

[Miss Julie]

Yes, but you would need to construct the sentence differently.

That is, you can't say "The World Cup is only one week to go."

 

[entangledbank]

No, they fit into the larger sentence in different ways:

There is one week to go (before the World Cup).
With one week to go before the World Cup starts, let's look at the teams.
The World Cup is one week away.

You can't swap the two kinds of expression in those sentences.

 

[Natsuna]

How about saying one week ahead instead of one week away?

 

[Miss Julie]

How about saying one week ahead instead of one week away?

No, "one week ahead" wouldn't work.

 

[Natsuna]

Thanks a lot, Miss Julie.