[General] How many subway stops are there from Shapingba to your home?

[Silverobama]

Part of the question was asked here in this thread.

Context:

- How many subway stops are there from Shapingba to your home?
- Five.

Questions:

1) Is "are there" necessary or optional in my sentence?
2) With "are there", is the whole sentence natural and grammatical?

 

[jutfrank]

1) Well, it's grammatically necessary, yes. But is a speaker likely to omit it in very casual speech? I'd say fairly likely, yes.

2) Yes.

 

[Tdol]

You could also say How many stops is your home from Shapinga?.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

You could also say How many stops is your home from Shapinga?.

Yes. Or:

- How many subway stops are you from Shapingba?

- How many stops away from Shapingba are you?

 

[emsr2d2]

Or "How many subway stops are there between Shapingba and your stop?" (I wouldn't use "your home" because there almost certainly isn't a subway stop right outside your house, or with your address as its name!)