Describing Location

I held off with this lesson because I've seen conflicting reports of the best way to describe someone or something's location. Tae Kim's site uses ある or いる for it, while Genki uses です. I asked people for advice on the matter and it appears that ある and いる are more commonly used, so that's what I'm going to use in my lesson.

I touched on this in a previous post, but describing a location in relation to something else means using の along with the original item.

アヤトは学校の近くにいる。
Ayato is near the school.

車は銀行の左にある。
The car is to the left of the bank.

犬は池の横にいる。
The dog is next to the pond.

本は机の上にある。
The book is on the desk.

ライト君は家の中にいる。
Laito-kun is in the house.

There are two ways of saying "next to" or "beside": 横 「よこ」 and 隣 「となり」. The former can be used with dissimilar items, while the latter only sounds natural with similar items (like buildings, for  example).