What does this mean: "quando son due passi"?

Question

I'm a Japanese learner of italiano. My Italiano-giapponese dictionary has this example sentence: "Non capisco perché prendere la macchina quando son due passi." I can't find the word "son" anywhere in my two dictionaries. I think I understand what the whole sentence means, but what does "son" mean?

Answer 1

It is called apocope (or elision) that is:

the loss of one or more sounds or letters at the end of a word. (M-W)

“Son” is the truncated form of the verb “sono” (they are).

The sense is: “it is only two steps”, that is “it is only a small walk so there is no need to use the car.”