Travel and transportation

What you’ll learn

• Ask for a destination and departure time.
• Understand basic ticket and platform language.
• Clarify a connection or a simple travel problem.

Ask before you choose a route

Begin with the destination: ¿Este tren va a Valencia? Then ask the time with ¿A qué hora sale? Salir describes departure and llegar describes arrival. A las ocho tells you an event's time; son las ocho tells you the current time. Keep the destination and the time separate when checking an itinerary.

Ticket vocabulary varies: billete, boleto and pasaje all occur in travel contexts. A ticket may be de ida or de ida y vuelta. Ask for the kind you actually need and repeat key details. Saying a town's name slowly is useful, but spelling it may be clearer when two names sound similar.

Confirm the connection

A connection may require cambiar de tren or hacer un transbordo. Ask ¿Tengo que cambiar? and confirm where. Tener que + infinitive expresses a requirement: Tengo que cambiar en la próxima estación. An andén is a railway platform in these examples, while a puerta commonly identifies an airport gate.

If a service is late, you may hear tiene retraso or llega tarde. Explain what happened in a short past sentence: Perdí el tren. Then ask for the next available departure. Read or listen for numbers carefully, and confirm them instead of filling a gap with a guess.

Useful vocabulary

salir

to depart / go out

llegar

to arrive

el andén

the platform

Common mistakes

• Do not confuse departure with arrival when reading a schedule.
• Keep the verb infinitive after tengo que.
• Ticket vocabulary varies; confirm meaning in the local travel context.

Keep these ideas

• Check destination, departure time and ticket type.
• Use tener que for a required connection.
• Explain a problem briefly and ask for the next step.

Use it in your life

Plan a fictional journey for a story character. Write questions that establish destination, departure time and any change of transport.

Read it in context

Look for this lesson’s ideas in a complete Spanish story. Read the passage first, then use its translations to check your understanding.