French For Travel: How Do You Ask About Trains in France?

If you are at a railway station in France, you may require some basic phrases to ask about trains and to book your ticket.

In this lesson, we hear ten useful phrases that you may need to make those basic enquiries.

Watch the video as many times as you need, until you feel you can give the French translations as we go!

Now we can see what we’ve learned. Look at the English and see if you can provide the French for the following:

Part 1:

What time is the train to Paris?
A return to Paris in first class.
A single ticket in second class to Lyon.
How long until the train leaves?
It leaves in five minutes.

Part 2:

Which platform does the ten o’clock to Paris depart from?
What are the times for the trains to Lyon?
How much is the ticket?
Is it a direct train?
You have to change at Marseille.

What Is the TGV?

The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, “high-speed train”) is the high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF (the national French rail service). TGV was first proposed in the 1960s, after Japan had begun construction of the Shinkansen (also known as the ‘bullet train’) in 1959.

Today, TGVs represent the modern flagship trains for long distance travel across France. An ever increasing number of TGVs are double-decker trains, known as TGV Duplex.

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